i^ 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME 


JOSEPH   JEFFERSON 
AT   HOME 


BY 


NATHAN    HASKELL    DOLE 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 
ESTES  AND   LAURIAT 

1898 


Copyright,  i8g7 
By  T.  E.  Marr 

Copyright,  i8g8 
By  Estes  and  Lauriat 


Colmtial  tPrcss: 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &  Co. 
Boston.  U.  S.  A. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FAGB 

Crow's  Nest,  Showing  Family  Group  on  Piazza         .    Frontispiece 
Joseph   Jefferson   Telling   a   Story  to   Sol  Smith    Russell, 
His  Youngest  Son   Standing   in   the   Centre   Listen- 
ing,   AND   His   Little   Grandson   Sitting   on   Arm   of 
Chair    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .13 

Joseph  Jefferson  and  Sol  Smith   Russell  at  Crow's  Nest    .        19 
Reception  Hall,   Crow's  Nest  .  .  .  .  .  .25 

Parlor,    Showing    Carved    Figures    in    the    Play    of    *'  Rip 

Van  Winkle  "  under  the  Mantel  .  .  .  .31 

Down-stairs   Library,    Showing    a    Painting    by   Joseph  Jef- 
ferson  .  .       ■  .  .  .  .  .  .  -37 

Dining-room,   Crow's  Nest         ......        43 

Mantel,   Brought  from  India,   in  the  Dining-room     .  .        51 

Upper  Hall,   Crow's  Nest         ......        57 

Joseph  Jefferson  in  His  Studio  .....        63 

Landscape,  by  Jefferson,    '96   (Painting)    ....        69 

Marine,  by  Jefferson,   '97   (Painting)         ....        75 

The  Mill,   by  Jefferson,   '97    (Painting)    .  .  .  .81 

Back  View  of  Jefferson  at  the  Easel        ....        87 

Jefferson's  Stable,   Showing  His  Youngest  Son  on  Pony     .        93 
Electric  Plant  ........      101 


JOSEPH   JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 


A  PAINTER  lives  in  the  legacy  of  his  pictures ;  the 
poet  goes  down  to  posterity  in  his  verses ;  the  musi- 
cal composer  wins  immortality  by  his  operas  or  sym- 
phonies, which  live  on  in  the  possibilities  of  the  printed 
page :  but  the  singer  and  the  actor,  however  great  their  ^he 

r    o     '  o  '  o  ephemeral 

c  '111  1  1  •   •  lot  of  the 

contemporary    tame,  quickly   become    only   a   tradition,  actor. 
We   read   of  the   triumphs    of  the    Siddonses   and   the 
Ristoris,   of  the    Grisis    and   the    Marios,  and  there   is 
nothing  to  bring  them  before  our  imaginations,  except 
the  extravagant  encomiums  of  their  day. 

The  praise  and  applause  which  crown  the  efforts  of 
the  popular  actor  is  his  compensation  for  the  temporary 
character  of  his  work. 

Fortunate  is  the  actor  who  lives  in  this  later  genera- 
ation.  The  gulf,  so  artificial  and  unnecessary,  that  in 
former  times  separated  him  from  society,  has  been  practi- 
cally closed  ;  the  narrow  and  bitter  prejudice  which  has,  p*^Xe. 
indeed,  always  existed  and  in  all  countries,  against  those 
who  "  show  themselves  for  money,"  who  pretend  to  be 
what  they  are  not,  has  largely  died  out.     Occasionally, 

9 


lO  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

some  popular  preacher  will  rail  against  the  theatre,  or 
bring  odium  on  the  church  by  refusing  Christian  burial  to 
the  buskined  son  of  the  Muses;  but  the  world,  as  it  in- 
creases in  knowledge,  recognises  more  and  more  openly 
that  prejudices  are  ignorant  and  unreasoning ;  they  are 
now  mainly  confined  to  bigoted  sectarians.  We  know 
that  the  "  stage- villain  "  may  be  in  his  private  life  the 
pattern  of  propriety.  The  actor  is  not  only  "  admired, 
applauded,  highly  rewarded,  loved,  envied,  the  object 
of  the  most  flattering  (not  to  say  the  most  impertinent) 
curiosity,"  but,  what  is  better,  he  is  weighed  on  his  own 
merits,  and  if  his  character  and  behaviour  be  blameless, 
his  profession  is  regarded  as  in  no  respect  derogatory ; 
he  is  everywhere  received  in  the  most  exclusive  cir- 
cles ;  he  is  decorated  with  the  ribbon  of  the  legion  of 
honour ;  he  is  granted  titles  and  honours ;  he  is  wel- 
comed for  his  own  sake. 
Character  It  is  undcniable  that  the  standard  of  character  among; 

oi  actors.  o 

actors  has  been  constantly  rising.  Whereas  the  glare  of 
publicity  may  seem  to  bring  out  into  prominence  the 
failings  of  certain  erratic  geniuses,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  search-light  of  criticism  finds  that  many  of  the  most 
popular  actors  and  actresses  of  the  day  are  without  re- 
proach, that  they  lead  perfectly  exemplary  lives,  and 
have  all  the  virtues  of  humanity.  Many  are  those 
whom  one  might  select  as  object-lessons  of  this  worthi- 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  1 1 

ness ;  one  would,  perhaps,  think  most  naturally,  at  the 
very  first,  of  the  name  of  Jefferson,  borne  irreproachably 
through  five  generations,  and  culminating  in  the  fasci- 
nating and  admirable  personality  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  the 
Rip  Van  Winkle  so  dear  to  thousands.  It  is  with 
Joseph  Jefferson,  the  third  to  bear  that  honoured  name, 
that  this  unpretentious  monograph  has  to  deal,  not  so 
much  for  the  purpose  of  defending  the  stage,  as  to 
gratify  a  laudable  desire  on  the  part  of  many  to  have 
a  compact  sketch  of  the  life,  and  particularly  of  the 
home  life,  of  an  actor  who  has  been  so  long  before 
the  footlights,  and  secondly,  to  lay  an  humble  wreath 
at  the  feet  of  one  whom  we  all  are  proud  to  honour. 


I. 

Joseph  Jefferson  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  Feb.  20, 
1829,  at  the  southwest  corner  of  Spruce  Street  and  Sixth 
Street.  In  his  autobiography,  he  says  that  he  could 
almost  claim  to  have  been  born  in  a  theatre ;  his  earliest 
recollections  were  connected  with  one  ;  his  first  play- 
house was,  in  both  senses  of  the  word,  a  playhouse ; 
Early  «  behind    the    scenes  "    he    could    amuse    himself  with 

passion 

oracing.  « j-j^Qge  g^j-g  tokens  of  bad  weather,  the  thunder-drum 
and  rain-box,"  or  play  hide-and-seek  in  the  "  Tomb 
of  the  Capulets,"  or  Ali  Baba's  robbers'  cave ;  or  behind 
the  green  bank,  from  which  stray  babies  "  were  usually 
stolen,  when  left  there  by  affectionate  but  careless  moth- 
ers." Even  when  he  was  in  long  clothes,  at  a  time 
before  which  his  memory  is  a  blank,  he  was  carried 
on  the  stage  to  add  realism  to  the  scene.  His  earliest 
passion  was  for  theatricals ;  he  says  that  as  he  had  a 
theatre  stocked  with  scenery  and  properties,  he  could 
indulge  his  passion  at  small  expense,  especially  as  his 
stock  company  were  volunteers,  consisting  of  two  little 
boys  and  their  sister,  who  used  to  play  with  him  on 
Saturdays. 

12 


o 

o 

CO  '^ 

^  i 

i  2 

o  5^ 


z   z 


«     CO 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  I  5 

This  early  passion  for  the  stage  was  not  merely  the 

•^      ^  .  Inherited 

result  of  environment.  Inheritance,  reaching  back  nearly  talents. 
a  hundred  years  before  his  birth,  must  be  also  called  in 
to  explain  it.  In  1746,  a  youth  of  eighteen  named 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  son  of  a  Yorkshire  farmer,  rode 
to  London,  mounted  on  a  thoroughbred  horse,  and  was 
by  a  happy  accident  immediately  thrown  into  the  society 
of  David  Garrick.  He  was  a  jovial  young  fellow,  and 
so  charming  that  he  was  admitted  into  Garrick's  inti- 
mate friendship,  and  by  his  advice  adopted  the  stage. 
His  earliest  recorded  appearance  at  Drury  Lane  was 
in  October,  1753.  He  took  the  management  of  sev- 
eral theatres,  and  was  an  actor  of  sterling  merit  in 
some  sixty  parts,  and  passed  a  highly  successful  life, 
dying  in  1807,  after  sixty  years  of  connection  with  the 
stage.  His  first  wife  came  from  a  family  connected 
with  the  Navy,  and  opposed  to  her  becoming  an  act- 
ress, but  she  succeeded  in  overcoming  her  father's  scru- 
ples, and  went  on  the  stage,  playing  with  her  husband 
at  Drury  Lane  in  1753.  One  of  their  two  sons  became 
a  clergyman,  and  went  as  a  missionary  to  Africa ;  the 
other,  Joseph,  born  in  1774,  became  an  actor,  and  hav-  jo|e^ph 
ing  some  difficulties  with  his  father's  second  wife,  he 
came  to  America  in  1797,  for  a  salary  of  seventeen 
dollars  a  week,  and  the  payment  of  his  passage,  offered 
by  Charles  Stuart  Powell,  the  first  manager  of  the  Bos- 


fferson 
the  first. 


humour. 


1 6  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

ton  Theatre.  By  the  time  that  Jefferson  reached  Boston 
Powell  had  failed,  and  the  Federal  Street  Theatre  was  in 
other  hands.  It  is  possible  that  he  played  as  one  of  the 
witches  in  "  Macbeth,"  in  December,  1795,  but  his  first 
important  appearance  in  this  country  was  in  February  of 
the  following  year,  when  he  played  the  part  of  "  Squire 
Richard  "  in  "  The  Provoked  Husband."  He  was  de- 
scribed as  small  and  slender,  with  a  Grecian  nose,  blue 
eyes  full  of  laughter,  and  an  unrivalled  capacity  for 
we'^of*^  exciting  mirth.  He  seems  to  have  inherited  his  father's 
love  for  a  good  joke,  —  a  characteristic  that  has  been 
handed  down,  like  a  Toledo  blade,  from  generation  to 
generation.  Joseph  Jefferson  found  lodgings  in  New 
York  with  a  Mrs.  Fortune,  the  widow  of  a  Scotch  mer- 
chant. Her  house  was  next  the  John  Street  Theatre, 
where  he  made  his  first  successes.  She  had  two  daugh- 
ters; one,  Euphemia,  became  the  young  comedian's  wife: 
the  other,  eleven  years  later,  became  the  second  wife  of 
William  Warren,  and  the  mother  of  no  less  than  six 
children,  all  of  whom  find  mention  in  the  history  of 
the  American  stage ;  the  fifth  was  William  Warren, 
who  for  over  forty  years  was  the  mainstay  of  the 
Boston  Museum  company,  Boston's  especial  pride  and 
favourite  in  many  varied  parts. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jefferson  both  accepted  an  engagement 
at  the  Park  Theatre,  his  service  lasting  five  years,  hers 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  ly 

lasting  three.  It  is  said  that  his  greatest  successes  were 
made  in  the  delineation  of  old  men  ;  and  one  of  his  fa- 
vourite autobiographical  anecdotes  relates  how  a  philan- 
thropic  lady  once   called   at   the   Park   Theatre   with   a  ^rop/^" 

.  scheme. 

subscription  blank,  and  begged  the  managers  to  with- 
draw that  poor  old  Mr.  Jefferson  from  the  stage.  She 
had  seen  him  as  "  Item,"  in  "  The  Steward,"  and  she  felt 
that  it  would  be  only  Christian  charity  to  provide  for 
such  an  aged  and  feeble  person.  She  herself  had  headed 
the  subscription  with  a  generous  sum,  and  was  on  her 
way  to  increase  it,  in  order  to  provide  a  home  for  the 
infirm  old  man  in  his  declining  years.  Thomas  Cooper, 
a  fellow  actor,  listened  to  her  generous  scheme,  and 
assured  her  that  the  management  would  gladly  cooper- 
ate in  relieving  Jefferson's  condition.  At  that  propi- 
tious moment  Jefferson  himself  came  in,  and  Cooper  had 
the  pleasure  of  presenting  him  to  his  benefactress,  who 
was  amazed  to  see  such  a  handsome  young  man,  and 
could  hardly  believe  her  eyes.  She  tore  the  subscrip- 
tion-blank into  pieces  and  went  away,  not  sadder,  but 
wiser. 

In   1803,  the  Jeffersons  moved  to  Philadelphia,  and  Jegersons 
joined    the    company    playing    at    the    Chestnut    Street  ddphla^" 
Theatre,  with  which  their  fortunes  were  identified  until 
the    theatre   was    burned    down    in    1821.     After    that 
Jefferson's  popularity  gradually  declined.     His  wife  died 


1 8  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

in  January,  1831,  and  he  himself,  disappointed  and  suf- 
fering from  the  disease  of  gout,  which  he  had  inherited 
and  vainly  struggled  against,  "  closed  his  pure  and 
blameless  life "  in  Harrisburg,  eighteen  months  later. 
William  Winter  sums  up  contemporaneous  opinions  of 
him  in  the  statement  that  "  he  was  a  man  of  original 
mind,  studious  habits,  fine  temperament,  natural  dignity, 
and  great  charm  of  character,  and  his  life  was  free  from 
contention,  acrimony,  and  reproach."  He  had  the  gift 
of  making  people  happy.  The  very  sound  of  his 
voice  compelled  laughter.     "  Alas  !      Poor  Yorick  !  " 

He  appeared  in  upwards  of  two  hundred  characters, 
but  all  his  talents  could  not  save  him  from  waning  popu- 
larity. Edwin  Forrest  spoke  once  with  deep  feeling  of 
"  that  beautiful  and  gifted  old  man ;  what  poverty  and 
what  purity  and  high  moraHty  were  in  his  household ; 
how  he  had  educated  his  children,  and  how  at  last  he 
had  died  among  strangers,  heart-broken  by  ingratitude." 
Not  wholly  unappreciated !  For  Chief  Justice  Gibson 
4itoph!'^'  composed  an  epitaph  for  his  gravestone,  in  which  he 
called  him  "  an  actor  whose  unrivalled  powers  took  in 
the  whole  range  of  comic  character,  from  pathos  to  soul- 
shaking  mirth ;  his  colouring  of  the  part  was  that  of 
nature,  —  warm,  pure  and  fresh  ;  but  of  nature  enriched 
with  the  finest  conceptions  of  genius." 

He  had  nine  children,  all  but  two  of  whom  adopted 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  1 1 

the  profession  of  acting.  His  second  son,  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son II.,  was  born  in  1804,  in  Powell  Street,  Philadelphia.  Jjff|g'^°°j 
He  inherited  his  father's  talent  for  drawing  and  painting, 
and  he  showed  some  proficiency  in  architecture.  When 
he  was  a  boy  of  ten,  he  appeared  at  the  Chestnut  Street 
Theatre,  and  played  such  parts  as  the  First  Murderer  in 
"  Macbeth."  Like  his  father,  he  was  excellent  in  play- 
ing old  men.  In  1824  he  was  a  member  of  the  Chatham 
Garden  Theatre  and  met  Mrs.  Thomas  Burke,  whom  he 
married,  though  she  was  eight  years  his  senior.  She  was 
born  in  New  York,  the  daughter  of  a  French  gentleman 
named  Thomas,  who,  with  his  wife,  was  on  his  way  to  San 
Domingo,  to  take  possession  of  an  estate.  M.  Thomas 
lived  on  the  island  until  the  rising  of  the  negroes  in 
1804,  when  they  were  assisted  to  escape  by  a  faithful 
slave.  He  arrived  penniless  at  Charleston,  S.  C,  and, 
through  the  favour  of  the  athlete  and  rope-dancer,  Alex- 
andre Placide,  then  managing  the  Charleston  Theatre,  he 
found  humble  employment  behind  the  scenes,  but  not  as 
an  actor.  His  now  motherless  daughter,  Cornelie  Fran-  ^ofher°°'^ 
^oise,  first  served  in  the  ballet  and  afterwards  in  minor 
parts  in  regular  plays.  She  became  well  known  as  a 
singer :  Ireland  says  that  she  had  "  a  pleasing  face  and 
person,  and  an  exquisite  voice,  which,  in  power,  purity, 
and  sweetness,  was  unapproached  by  any  contempo- 
rary."   She  was  early  married  to  the  handsome,  talented. 


22  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

but  dissipated  Irish  comedian,  Thomas  Burke,  who  died 
of  delirium  tremens  in  1824,  leaving  one  son,  Charles  St. 
Thomas,  who  gave  great  promise,  but  died  at  the  early 
age  of  thirty-two.  Even  then  he  had  appeared  on  the 
stage  in  upwards  of  fifty  parts,  and  was  the  first  to  dram- 
atise and  to  act  the  part  of  "Rip  Van  Winkle." 

Joseph  Jefferson  III.  well  remembered  how  his  half- 
brother  spoke  the  line,  "  Are  we  so  soon  forgot  when  we 
are  gone  ?  "  and,  out  of  sweet  loyalty  to  that  lamented 
genius,  pronounces  them  in  a  diflferent  tone.  He  is 
quoted  as  saying  of  him  : 

"  Charles  Burke  was  to  acting  what  Mendelssohn  was 
to  music.  He  did  not  have  to  work  for  his  effects,  as  I 
do.  He  was  not  analytical,  as  I  am.  Whatever  he  did 
came  to  him  naturally,  as  grass  grows  or  water  runs.  It 
was  not  talent  that  informed  his  art,  but  genius." 

Such  was  the  ancestry  and  inheritance  of  the  future 
Anunsuiiied  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  an  inheritance  of  unsullied  character 

inheritance.  ^ 

through  five  generations ;  of  varied  talents  ;  and  finally 
those  blended  strands  of  nationality  —  English,  Scotch, 
and  French  —  which  so  often  result  in  original  genius. 


II. 

Mr.  Jefferson  gives  an  amusing  account  of  his  first 
conscious   public   appearance,   when,  "  in  a  white  tunic  ^ariy 

r  r  r  ■'  '  appearance 

beautifully  striped  with  gold  bands,  and  in  the  grasp  and  ""^  ^^^^^^' 
on  the  shoulders  of  an  infuriated  tragedian,"  he  was  car- 
ried across  "  a  shaky  bridge  amid  the  deafening  report  of 
guns  and  pistols  and  in  a  blaze  of  fire  and  smoke.  To 
me,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  the  situation  seemed  perilous, 
and  in  order  to  render  my  position  more  secure,  I  seized 
*  Rolla  '  by  the  hair  of  his  head.  '  Let  go,'  he  cried,  but 
I  was  obeying  the  first  law  of  nature,  not  '  Rolla,'  so  I 
tightened  my  grasp  upon  his  tragic  topknot.  The 
battle  was  short  but  decisive,  for  in  the  next  moment  I 
had  pulled  off  his  feather-duster  head-dress,  wig  and  all, 
thereby  unintentionally  scalping  the  enemy  ;  and,  as  he 
was  past  the  prime  of  life,  the  noble  Peruvian  stood 
bald-headed  before  an  admiring   audience." 

When  he  was  three  years  old,  he  was  taken  to  witness 
a  new  entertainment  in  the  shape  of  "  Living  Statues," 
and  his  imitative  genius  impelled  him  to  copy  the  tab- 
leaux. He  posed  for  his  own  amusement  before  the 
green-room  glass  as  "  Ajax  defying  the  Lightning,"  or  as 

23 


24  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

"  The  Dying  Gladiator."  His  family  also  had  the  bene- 
fit of  these  amateur  performances,  and  it  was  but  a  step 
to  transfer  the  gifted  child  to  the  stage,  to  repeat  them 
for  the  amusement  of  the  public. 

His  aunt  Ehzabeth,  in  her  recollections,'  recalls  how, 
Ind  thfe""  when  little  more  than  two  years  old,  he  gave  an  imitation 
statues.  of  Fletcher  the  statue  man,  and  his  grandmother,  chanc- 
ing to  notice  him  in  a  corner  of  the  room  trying  that  ex- 
periment, found  that  he  had  caught  all  the  "  business  " 
of  the  statues,  though  he  could  not  have  pronounced  the 
name  of  one  of  them.  She  made  him  a  dress  similar  to 
that  worn  by  Fletcher,  and  that  he  made  somewhat  of  a 
sensation  is  proved  by  a  statement  quoted  from  an  inter- 
view with  an  eye-witness  who  recollected  how  little  Joe, 
"  in  white  fleshings,  white  wig,  and  chalked  face,  was 
placed  on  a  small  round  table  and  gave  imitations  of 
Fletcher's  statuary, — 'The  Discobolus,'  '  Ajax  Defy- 
ing the  Lightning,'  etc.  He  was  hardly  longer  than 
the  legs  of  the  table,  but  so  admirably  he  struck  the 
attitudes,  and  so  perfectly  proportioned  was  he,  that  the 
audiences  were  charmed  with  the  graceful,  lovely  boy." 
He  himself  says : 

"  I  am  in  the  dark  as  to  whether  this  entertainment 
was  '  the  talk  of  the  town  '  or  not,  but  I  fancy  not ;  an 
attenuated  child   representing   Hercules  struggling  with 

'  Printed  in  Mr.  William  Winter's  "  Life  and  Art  of  Joseph  Jefferson." 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  1'J 

a  lion  could  scarcely  excite  terror ;  so  I  presume  I  did 
no  harm  if  I  did  no  good," 

When    he  was   four  years   old,   he   likewise  imitated  Pjfm°^ 

Crow." 

T.  D.  Rice,  one  of  the  first  to  delineate  negro  charac- 
ters. That  fantastic  "  knight  of  the  burnt  cork "  saw 
his  imitation  of  "Jim  Crow,"  and  insisted  that  the  boy 
should  appear  for  his  benefit.  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his 
autobiography,  says:  "  I  was  duly  blacked  up,  and 
dressed  as  a  complete  miniature  likeness  of  the  origi- 
nal. He  put  me  in  a  bag,  which  almost  smothered 
me,  and  carried  me  upon  the  stage  on  his  shoulders. 
No  word  of  this  proceeding  had  been  mentioned  in 
the  bills,  so  that,  figuratively  speaking,  the  public  were 
as  much  in  the  dark  as  I  was.  After  dancing  and 
singing  the  first  stanza,  he  began  the  second,  the  fol- 
lowing being  the  two  lines  which  introduced  me : 

**  *  Oh,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I'd  have  you  for  to  know 

That  I've  got  a  little  darkey  here,  that  jumps  Jim  Crow  ; ' 

and  turning  the  bag  upside  down,  he  emptied  me  out 
head  first  before  the  eyes  of  the  astonished  audience. 
The  picture  must  have  been  a  curious  one ;  it  is  as 
vividly  before  me  now  as  any  recollection  of  my  past 
life.  Rice  was  considerably  over  six  feet  high,  I  was 
but  four  years  old,  and  as  we  stood  there,  dressed 
exactly  alike,  the  audience  roared  with  laughter.     Rice 


28  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

and  I  now  sang  alternate  stanzas,  and  the  excitement 
increased  ;  showers  of  pennies,  sixpences,  and  shiUings 
were  tossed  from  the  pit,  and  thrown  from  the  gal- 
leries upon   the   stage.     I   took  no   notice  of  this,  but 

doSS°*  suddenly  the  clear,  ringing  sound  of  a  dollar  caught 
my  ear,  and  as  the  bright  coin  was  rolling  from  the 
stage  into  the  orchestra,  I  darted  forward,  and  secured 
my  prize.  Holding  it  triumphantly  between  my  finger 
and  thumb,  I  grinned  at  the  leader  of  the  orchestra, 
as  much  as  to  say,  ^  No,  you  don't.'  This  not  only 
brought  down  the  house,  but  many  half-dollars  and  dol- 
lars besides.  At  the  fall  of  the  curtain,  twenty-four 
dollars  were  picked  up,  and  given  into  my  delighted 
hands."  That  was  not  the  last  golden,  or  rather  sil- 
ver, shower  that  fell  at  the  feet  of  the  young  actor. 

That  performance  took  place  in  Washington.  Mr. 
Jefferson's  childhood  was  a  kind  of  an  Odyssey,  and 
his    wanderings    were    many    and    full    of    adventures. 

c^a.  Combats  were  not  lacking ;  thus  at  his  first  appear- 
ance "out  of  the  juvenile  supernumerary  ranks:"  He 
was  dressed  to  represent  a  Greek  pirate,  and  Master 
Titus,  the  son  of  a  City  Hall  official,  represented  an 
American  sailor.  They  had  a  fierce  encounter,  but 
young  Jefferson  was  magnanimous,  and  allowed  his 
opponent,  for  whose  benefit  the  fight  took  place,  to 
overcome   and   slay   him.     The   fight  was   redemanded. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  29 

and  the  Greek  pirate  "  had  to  come  to  life  again,  — 
quite  a  common  thing  for  stage  pirates,  —  and  die 
twice."  Mr.  Jefferson  recalls  that  he  rather  delighted 
in  being  the  slain  foe,  and  having  a  star-spangled  ban- 
ner waved  over  him,  but  he  is  at  a  loss  to  know  why 
Mrs.  Ireland  refers  to  that  combat  as  celebrated.  "  In 
the  accounts  of  our  last  war  with  the  Greeks,"  he  says, 
"  there  is  no  mention  made  of  this  circumstance.  If, 
therefore,  the  combat  was  celebrated,  it  must  have  been 
for  historical  inaccuracy." 

The  Jeffersons'  stay  in  New  York  could  not  have 
been  very  long  or  very  successfiil,  for  though  they 
were  there  in  1835,  ^^  years  later,  or  at  the  end  of 
the  season  of  1837—38,  having  received  an  invitation 
from  a  brother-in-law,  Alexander  Mackenzie,  to  go 
to  Chicago  and  take  part  in  the  management  of  a  new 
theatre  in  that  enterprising  little  town,  they  were  in 
such  straitened  circumstances  that  they  had  to  sell  cer- 
tain cherished  articles  to  procure  "  necessary  comforts 
for  the  trip,"  and  in  order  to  pay  their  fare  on  an 
Erie  canal-boat,  they  depended  upon  such  precarious 
receipts  as  they  might  get  by  acting  at  Schenectady, 
Utica,  or  Syracuse.  The  captain  of  the  canal-boat  ona"™!?" 
had  conscientious  scruples  against  attending  the  theatre, 
but  not  against  taking  the  entrance  fees.  But,  un- 
fortunately, at  Syracuse   it   rained   in   torrents,  and  the 


30  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

attendance  was  light.  They  still  owed  ten  dollars 
passage-money.  So  the  captain,  having  an  inward  han- 
kering for  the  forbidden,  offered  to  call  it  "  square  "  if 
the  actors  in  the  company  would  give  him  a  private 
show  in  the  cabin.  They  declined,  with  a  pride  worthy 
of  the  Baron  de  Sigognac.  But  Mrs.  Jefferson  was  not 
averse  to  show  off  the  abilities  of  her  son,  and  he  was 
permitted  to  ransom  the  rest.  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his 
amusing  account  of  this  episode,  says  : 
tSlf  *°'  "  '^^^  captain  turned  it  over  in  his  mind,  —  being,  I 
am  afraid,  a  little  suspicious  of  my  genius,  —  but  after 
due  consideration,  consented.  So  he  prepared  himself 
for  the  entertainment,  the  cook  and  my  mother  com- 
prising the  rest  of  the  audience.  The  actors  had  wisely 
retired  to  the  upper  deck,  as  they  had  been  afflicted  on 
former  occasions.  I  now  began  a  dismal  comic  song, 
called  *  The  Devil  and  Little  Mike.'  It  consisted  of 
some  twenty-five  stanzas,  each  one  containing  two  lines, 
with  a  large  margin  of  *  whack  fol  de  riddle.'  It  was 
never  quite  clear  whether  the  captain  enjoyed  this  enter- 
tainment or  not ;  my  mother  said  he  did,  for  though 
the  religious  turn  of  his  mind  would  naturally  suppress 
any  impulse  to  applaud,  he  said,  even  before  I  had  half 
finished,  that  he  was  quite  satisfied." 

Many  years  later,  Mr.  Jefferson  is  said  to  have  had 
another  opportunity  to  turn  an  honest  penny  by  giving 


2    a 


r  5 


Fifty  cents' 
worth  of 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  o  o 

a  Strictly  private  performance.  He  was  out  on  the  tran- 
quil waters  of  Buzzard's  Bay,  when  a  fisherman's  craft 
slowly  drifted  alongside  of  his  boat,  and  the  owner, 
seated  amid  the  debris  of  his  conquests,  growled  out: 

"  Be  you  an  actor  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Wal,  here's  fifty  cents,  and  I  want  you  should  make  flc^s 
up  fifty  cents'  worth  of  faces  for  me." 

Accordingly  he  flung  a  silver  piece  over  into  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson's boat ! 

From  Bufl^alo  the  gay  emigrants,  hope  beckoning  on, 
took  steamer  for  the  long  and  beautiful  sail  through  the 
Great  Lakes,  a  leisurely  voyage,  with  delightful  experi- 
ences of  Indians  and  primitive  life  for  the  impressionable 
young  Thespian.  At  that  day  Chicago  contained  only 
about  two  thousand  inhabitants,  and  everything  was  new, 
even  the  theatre  —  new  and  crude.  "  Don't  you  think 
your  angels  are  a  little  stiff  in  their  attitudes  .?  "  asked 
Jefferson  of  the  scene-painter  of  his  Chicago  rival. 

"  No,  sir,  not  for  angels,"  was  his  reply,  evidently,  like 
the  ancient  bishop,  mistaking  angles  for  angels.  "  When  I 
deal  with  mythological  subjects  I  never  put  my  figures  in  Natural 

.  r  /        D  attitudes 

natural  attitudes  ;  it  would  be  inharmonious.     A  natural 

angel  would  be  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  work." 

There  may  also  have  been  a  hidden  sting  of  sarcasm  in 

that  memorable  reply,  reflecting  on  the  work  on  the  stage. 


III. 

Their  season  in  Chicago  was  short,  and  the  golden 

prospects  which  the  ever-hopeful  hoped  for  in  vain  led 

them  on  into  still   newer   fields.     Often,  says   his   son, 

when  the  roads  were  heavy  and  the  horses  were  jaded, 

A  hopeful      he  would  see  his  father  "  trudging  along  ahead  of  the 

spint.  DO  O 

wagon,  smoking  his  pipe  and  no  doubt  thinking  of  the 
large  fortune  he  was  going  to  make  in  the  next  town, 
now  and  then  looking  back  with  his  light  blue  eyes,  and 
giving  the  mother  a  cheerful  nod  which  plainly  said : 
'I'm  all  right;  this  is  splendid,  nothing  could  be  finer.' 
If  it  rained  he  was  glad  it  was  not  snowing ;  if  it  snowed 
he  was  thankful  it  was  not  raining.  This  contented 
spirit  was  his  only  inheritance  ;  but  it  was  better  than  a 
fortune  made  in  Galena  or  anywhere  else,  for  nothing 
could  rob  him  of  it." 

They  travelled  from  Galena  to  Dubuque  on  the  frozen 
Mississippi,  but  a  warm  spell  had  set  in,  and  they  could 
see  the  ice  bending  under  the  horses'  feet.  The  passen- 
gers arrived  safely,  but  the  sleigh  containing  their  bag- 
gage, their  scenery  and  properties  and  all  broke  through. 
"  My  poor  mother,"  says  Mr.  Jefferson,  "  was  in  tears, 

34 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  3  5 

but  my  father  was  in  high  spirits  at  his  good  luck,  as  he 
called  it,  —  because  there  was  a  sand-bar  where  the  sleigh 
went  in  !  " 

He,  poor  man,  had  painted  the  scenery,  and  its  appear-  frfthe'^ 

.       ,  MississippL 

ance  was  not  improved  by  a  six  hours'  cold  bath  !  "  A 
wood  scene  had  amalgamated  with  a  Roman  scene  painted 
on  the  back  of  it,  and  had  so  run  into  stains  and  winding 
streaks  that  he  said  it  looked  like  a  large  map  of  South 
America  ;  and  pointing  out  the  Andes  with  his  cane,  he 
humorously  traced  the  Amazon  to  its  source."  This 
accident  delayed  their  opening  for  a  week,  and  the  soaked 
helmets  of  pasteboard  were  beyond  repair. 

What  humorous  memories  such  episodes  must  recall 
in  better,  if  not  happier  days  !  Here  they  acted  in  a 
court-house,  there  in  a  large  warehouse ;  in  one  place 
they  routed  an  army  of  pigs  out  of  their  barracks  on  the  "<^°^^' 
prairie  at  the  edge  of  the  town,  and,  having  thoroughly  pig-house, 
cleansed  and  whitewashed  it,  they  played  there  in  "  Clari, 
the  Maid  of  Milan,"  by  John  Howard  Payne.  Mrs. 
Jefferson  sang  the  popular  ballad  of  "  Home,  Sweet 
Home,"  which  was  a  part  of  that  now-forgotten  drama. 
The  banished  pigs,  who  had  collected  under  the  flooring, 
were  so  affected  by  the  music  that  they  set  up  a  pathetic 
wail  in  the  midst  of  the  song,  and  quite  ruined  it.  Mn 
Jefferson  says  that  his  mother  was  in  tears  at  the  unex- 
pected  failure :   but  his   father,  with   his   usual   fund  of 


36 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME, 


Lincoln 
comes  to 
their  rescue. 


Art  in 
tlie  West 


philosophy,  consoled  her  by  saying  that,  "  Though  the 
grunting  was  not  quite  in  harmony  with  the  music,  it 
was  in  perfect  sympathy  with  the  sentiment." 

At  Springfield  the  two  managers  resolved  to  build  a 
new  theatre.  When  it  was  completed  it  was  forty  feet 
wide  and  ninety  feet  deep,  looking  like  "  a  large  dry- 
goods  box  with  a  roof."  No  sooner  was  it  completed, 
however,  than  a  political  shyster,  taking  advantage  of  a 
religious  revival  then  in  progress,  and  working  on  ram- 
pant prejudices,  got  the  town  to  pass  a  new  law  calling 
for  a  heavy  license  for  "  play-acting."  Ruin  stared  them 
in  the  face.  But  a  young  lawyer  came  to  their  aid,  and, 
by  a  masterly  argument  full  of  characteristic  humour, 
completely  turned  the  tables  on  the  bigots.  "  That  law- 
yer," says  Mr.  Jefferson,  with  pardonable  pride,  "  was 
Abraham  Lincoln." 

At  Memphis  the  Jeffersons,  who  had  parted  company 
with  McKenzie,  were  stranded ;  and,  as  an  ordinance 
had  been  passed  requiring  all  carts,  drays,  and  public 
vehicles  to  have  the  names  of  their  owners  painted  on 
them,  young  Jefferson  went  boldly  to  the  mayor  and 
represented  that  his  father  was  an  artist  as  well  as  a  com- 
edian, and  that,  as  the  theatrical  season  was  over,  he  was 
devoting  his  time  to  sign  and  ornamental  painting.  The 
result  was  that  the  contract  was  assigned  to  the  stranded 
actor,  and  he  and  his  son  spent  a  month  in  carrying  on 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  39 

this  artistic  and  lucrative  avocation,  while  their  leading 
man  manufactured  genuine  Havana  cigars  in  the  same 
studio.  He  was  also  engaged  to  decorate  a  billiard- 
saloon  and  bar-room,  and  then  a  house,  for  a  Scotch 
saloon-keeper.  For  this  work  no  pay  was  forthcoming, 
and,  after  waiting  in  vain  for  two  weeks,  they  took  steer- 
age passage  down  the  river  in  order  to  reach  Mobile  in 
time  for  the  fall  season.  But  at  the  last  moment  Mrs. 
Jefferson  resolved  to  appeal  to  the  wife  of  the  unjust 
debtor.  She  succeeded  and  returned  to  the  boat  with 
the  hard-earned  wages.  This  would  have  enabled  them 
to  travel  first-class,  but  she  persuaded  her  husband  that 
it  would  be  better  to  save  the  money  and  go  as  they  had 

at  first  intended.  Misfortunes 

in  Mobile. 

This  showed  the  contrast  between  the  two  natures  of 
Mr.  Jefferson's  parents  ;  "  she  was  content  to  bear  present 
humiliation  for  the  sake  of  future  good ;  he  would  will- 
ingly have  parted  with  all  his  money  for  the  sake  of 
giving  his  family  present  comfort."  So  they  went  by 
steerage,  and  reached  Mobile,  to  meet  with  worse  mis- 
fortune than  ever:  yellow  fever  was  raging  there,  and 
in  less  than  a  fortnight  after  their  arrival,  on  the  24th 
of  November,  1842,  Joseph  Jefferson  II.  fell  a  victim 
to  the  dreadful  disease.  Instead  of  oroinor  to  school, 
young  Jefferson  and  his  sister  were  engaged  at  the 
theatre,  to   act   in   fancy  dances   and  comic  duets ;   and 


40  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

employments  more  menial,  such  as  grinding  paints  in 
the  paint-room,  were  put  on  the  young  artist.  They 
received,  each,  a  salary  of  six  dollars  a  week,  and  were 
made  to  understand  that  it  v/as  given  to  them  as  a 
charity.  Mr.  Jefferson  adds  grimly  to  his  account  of 
these  troublous  days,  that  if  there  was  any  charity  in 
the  matter,  it  was  on  their  side,  considering  the  numer- 
ous duties  imposed  on  them.  Mrs.  Jefferson  undertook 
to  open  a  boarding-house  for  actors,  but  the  season  was 
disastrous  for  "  the  profession,"  and  so  she  found  herself 
in  debt.  Fortunateiv.  a  benevolent  lady  had  taken  an 
interest  in  her  enterprise,  and  volunteered  to  get  up  a 
benefit  for  the  two  talented  children  ;  it  was  a  success. 
Jefferson  ^^  Mobilc,  Jefferson  acted  with  both  Macready  and 

the  elder  Booth.  He  got  into  disgrace  with  Macready, 
however,  by  accidentally  setting  fire  to  his  wig.  Mac- 
ready  chased  him  all  over  the  theatre.  The  papers  the 
next  morning  declared  that  Macready  had  never  in  his 
life  acted  with  so  much  fire ;  but  poor  Jefferson  was 
temporarily  banished  from  the  stage,  although  the  fault 
was  clearly  the  actor's. 

After  the  Mobile  season  was  over,  the  company, 
including  the  Jeffersons,  went  to  Nashville,  and  trav- 
elled through  the  State.  On  their  return  to  Nash- 
ville, they  found  the  river  so  low  that  steamboats 
were   not   running ;  so,  although   the   season   had   been 


Macready. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  41 

very  bad,  they  managed  to  buy  a  barge  and  fit  it  up, 
and  sailed  down  the  river  "  in  the  queerest-looking  craft  doZrivlr. 
that  ever  carried  a  legitimate  stock  company  of  the  old 
school."     Jefferson  declared  that  it  was  heaven;  to  stand 
his  watch  at  night  gave  him  a  manly  feeling.     He  helped 
supply  the  larder  with  wild  game,  and,  no  doubt,  when 
they  got  farther  down   the  river,  and  there  was  a  fair 
wind  blowing  down  stream,  he  took  the  keenest  delight 
in  their  swift  progress,  rendered  possible  by  unfurling  a 
drop  scene  as  a  sail.     "  The  wonder-stricken  farmers," 
he  says,  "  and  their  wives  and  children  would  run  out 
of  their  log  cabins,  and,  standing  on  the  river  bank,  gaze 
with  amazement  at  our  curious  craft.      It  was  delight- 
ful to  watch  the  steamboats  as  they  went  by.     The  pas- 
sengers would  crowd  the  deck  and  look  with  wonder 
at  us.      For  a   bit  of  sport,  the  captain  and   I   would 
vary    the    picture,    and    as    a    boat    steamed    past,    we 
would    first    show    them    the    wood    scene,    and    then 
suddenly    swing    the    sail    around,    exhibiting    the    gor- 
geous palace.      Adding  to  this  sport,  our  leading  man 
and  the  low  comedian  would  sometimes  get  a  couple 
of  old-fashioned  broadswords,  and  fight  a  melodramatic 
combat  on   the  deck.      There  is   no  doubt,"  he  adds, 
"  that  at  times  our  barge  was  taken  for  a  floating  lunatic 
asylum." 

Later  the  next  season,  he  was  called  upon  to  grace 


42  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

a  patriotic  occasion  by  singing  the  "  Star  Spangled  Ban- 

An  attack  .  r  ^   •       r 

of  stage        ner  "  at  St.  Louis.      His  own  account  of  his  first  attack 

fright. 

of  Stage  fright  is  so   delightfully   humorous,  that  I  can 
not  resist  quoting  the  whole  of  it : 

"  I  had  studied  and  restudied  it  so  often  that  I  knew 
Jt  backwards ;  and  that  is  about  the  way  I  sung  it.  But 
I  must  not  anticipate.  The  curtain  rose  upon  the  com- 
pany, partly  attired  in  evening  dress ;  that  is  to  say, 
those  who  had  swallow-tail  coats  wore  them,  and  those 
who  were  not  blessed  with  that  graceful  garment  did 
the  best  they  could.  We  were  arranged  in  the  old 
conventional  half-circle,  with  the  '  Goddess  of  Liberty ' 
in  the  centre.  The  '  Mother  of  her  Country  '  had  a 
Roman  helmet  —  pasteboard,  I  am  afraid  —  on  her 
head,  and  was  tastefully  draped  with  the  American  flag. 
My  heart  was  in  my  mouth  as  the  music  started  up, 
but  I  stepped  boldly  forward  to  begin.  I  got  as  far 
as  '  Oh,  say  can  you  see,'  —  and  here  the  words  left 
me.  My  mind  was  a  blank.  I  tried  it  again :  '  Oh, 
say,  can  you  see —  Whether  they  could  see  or  not, 
I  am  quite  sure  that  I  could  not.  I  was  blind  with 
fright ;  the  house  swam  before  my  eyes ;  the  thousand 
faces  seemed  to  melt  into  one  huge,  expressionless 
Behaviour     physioenomv.     The  audience  began  to  hiss,  —  oh,  that 

of  audiences,     r      J  C>  J  o  -'  -' 

dreadful   sound !      I   love   my  country,  and  am,  under 
ordinary    circumstances,    fairly    patriotic ;    but    at    that 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  4^ 

moment  I  cursed  our  national  anthem  from  the  bot- 
tom of  my  heart.  I  heard  the  gentle  voice  of  the 
Goddess  of  Liberty  say,  '  Poor  fellow  ! '  The  remark 
was  kind,  but  not  encouraging.  The  hissing  increased. 
Old  Miiller,  the  German  leader,  called  out  to  me,  *  Go 
on,  Yo  ! '  But  '  Yo  '  couldn't  go  on,  so  '  Yo  '  thought 
he  had  better  go  off.  I  bowed,  therefore,  to  the  jus- 
tice of  this  public  rebuke,  and  made  a  graceful  retreat. 
My  poor  mother  stood  at  the  wings  in  tears ;  I  threw 
myself  into  her  arms,  and  we  had  it  out  together." 

Mr.  Jefferson  thinks  that  there  has  been  a  vast  im- 
provement in  public  behaviour  since  he  was  hissed  and 
jeered  for  so  slight  an  offence  as  a  momentary  lapse  of 
memory,  and  he  attributes  the  improvement  in  manners 
to  the  free  school. 

Perhaps   the  darkest  hour  in   vouns:    Jefferson's   life  park, 

^  y  O     •'  hours  in 

occurred  a  few  months  later,  when,  having  been  stranded  '^*'^^'pp*- 
for  several  weeks  in  the  town  of  Grand  Gulf,  Miss.,  and 
having  been  found  by  his  half-brother,  Charles  Burke, 
they  started  for  Port  Gibson,  where  Burke's  little  com- 
pany were  to  play  the  same  evening.  Burke  had  engaged 
a  wagon  and  team  to  take  his  mother  and  the  two  chil- 
dren there,  but  when  they  were  half-way  the  driver  re- 
fused to  go  any  farther  until  he  should  be  paid.  Burke 
had  no  money,  but  expected  to  settle  the  man's  bill 
from   the  evening's  receipts.      Mrs.  Jefferson's    famous 


46  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

Stocking  had  been  emptied  of  its  last  coin,  and  there  was 
nothing  left  for  them  but  to  bundle  themselves  uncere- 
moniously out  of  the  wagon  and  wait  until  Burke  found 
some  substitute.  There  is  no  little  pathos  in  the  pic- 
ture that  Mr.  Jefferson  draws  of  his  mother,  who  had 
been  "  one  of  the  most  attractive  stars  in  America,  the 
leading  prima  donna  of  her  time,  reduced  through  no 
fault  of  her  own  to  the  humiliation  of  being  put  out  of 
a  wagon  with  her  two  children,  in  a  lonely  road  in  the 
far-off  State  of  Mississippi,  because  she  could  not  pay 
a  wagoner  the  sum  of  ten  dollars." 

It  was  raining,  and  they  had  to  wait  under  the  shelter  of 

a  tree.     But  after  a  long  time  the  sun  came  out,  and  soon 

afterwards  Burke  put  in  an  appearance  mounted  on  an 

ox-cart  driven  by  an  old  negro.      It  took  four  hours  to 

Genuine       ffo  the  four  milcs  to  their  destination,  but  once  there, 

barn-storm-      " 

their  fortunes  began  to  mend.  One  night  they  acted  in 
a  barn,  all  the  neighbours  for  miles  around  coming  and 
gladly  paying  a  dollar  apiece  to  see  a  real  play.  Their 
supply  of  candles  held  out  for  them  to  give  the  "  Lady 
of  Lyons,"  but  they  played  "  The  Spectre  Bridegroom  " 
by  the  light  of  the  harvest  moon.  Mr.  Winter  tells  a 
somewhat  similar  story,  but  in  this  case  the  farmer,  of 
"more  than  commonly  benevolent  aspect,"  claimed  all 
the  receipts  as  a  fair  rental  for  his  barn,  and  the  poor 
actors  had  to  walk  all  the  way  to  the  next  town  hungry 


ing. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  47 

and  footsore.  In  Mr.  Winter's  story  the  distance  from 
the  sheltering  tree  to  Port  Gibson  has  grown  to  fifteen 
miles,  but  in  either  form  the  picture  of  the  trials  of  stroll- 
ing actors  fifty  years  ago  is  just  as  vivid.  They  certainly 
served  the  young  Jefferson  in  good  stead  of  a  more  for- 
mal education. 

After  some  weeks  of  this  precarious  existence,  Mrs. 
Jefferson  was  called  to  Galveston,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
season  there  they  went  to  Houston,  where  the  remnant 
of  their  company  acted  with  just  enough  success  to  keep 
"  their  heads  above  water."  They  were  there  at  the  ^n^w^"" 
outbreak  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  their  manager  decided 
to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  American  army.  They 
embarked  in  May,  1846,  for  Point  Isabel,  where  they 
arrived  in  time  to  hear  the  firing  at  the  battle  of  Palo 
Alto ;  and  the  following  morning  Jefferson  saw  the 
ambulance  bringing  in  the  wounded  Major  Ringgold. 
After  the  capture  of  Matamoras,  they  entered  the  town 
in  the  rear  of  the  army,  and  obtained  permission  from 
the  commandant  to  occupy  the  old  Spanish  theatre, 
"acting,"  says  Jefferson,  "  to  the  most  motley  group 
that  ever  filled  a  theatre," — soldiers,  settlers,  sutlers, 
gamblers,  and  adventurers.  But  by  the  middle  of  Momfrey!" 
September  the  army  had  moved  on  to  Monterey,  the 
town  was  deserted,  and  the  manager,  disbanding  his 
company,    disappeared,    leaving    their    salaries    unpaid. 


48  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

The  Jeffersons  and  one  other  actor,  named  Badger,  from 
Philadelphia,  alone  were  left,  and  being  penniless,  they 
were  in  desperate  straits ;  so  they  called  a  council  of  war 
and  determined  to  open  a  coffee  and  cake  stand  for  the 
benefit  of  the  gamblers  with  which  the  town  was  still 
swarming.  There  was  a  magnificent  gambling  and 
^st?i!?a^nf.  drinking  den,  called  "  The  Grand  Spanish  Saloon,"  the 
proprietor  of  which  allowed  them  to  start  their  restaurant 
at  one  end,  on  condition  that  he  should  be  paid  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  gross  receipts.  Two  boards  placed  between  a 
dry-goods  box  and  the  counter  and  draped  with  Turkey 
red  served  as  their  "  stand,"  and  here  "  a  large  and  elab- 
orate tin  coffee  urn,"  heated  by  alcohol,  and  surrounded 
by  a  glittering  array  of  cups,  saucers,  and  German  silver 
spoons,  looked  down  upon  their  stock  of  pies,  sand- 
wiches, and  cheap  cigars.  They  counted  much  on  "  the 
large,  round,  burnt-sienna-looking  cakes,  called  '  mandil- 
los.'"  These  were  glazed  on  top  with  some  sticky  sub- 
stance, and  served  the  double  purpose  of  man-enticers  and 
fly-traps.  The  stand  became  a  great  success,  especially 
after  the  mandillos  had  been  banished  from  sight.  But  a 
terrible  murder  that  took  place  in  the  saloon,  when  three 
Mexicans  attacked  the  famous  Buck  Wallace  and  stabbed 
him  to  the  heart,  made  the  young  actors  realise  the  precari- 
ousness  of  their  calling,  and  they  sold  out. 

At  Matamoras  Jefferson  met  his  first  love,  a  Spanish 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  49 

girl  with  merry  black  eyes  and  pearly  teeth.  She  taught 
him  to  speak  a  few  Spanish  words,  to  play  the  guitar,  i^eauty. 
and  to  smoke  cigarettes.  At  first  their  communications 
were  conducted  only  in  the  language  of  smiles  and  eyes, 
and  Mr.  Jefferson  says  that  it  was  all  for  the  best,  for 
otherwise  he  might  have  astonished  his  mother  with  a 
Mexican  daughter-in-law.  Through  an  interpreter  he 
told  her  that  he  was  going  back  to  his  own  country, 
but  that  as  soon  as  he  had  made  his  fortune  he  should 
come  back  and  claim  her  for  his  bride.  Alas !  it  was 
the  old  story  of  the  Blue  Alsatian  Mountains :  he  never 
saw  her  again,  or  any  of  her  sixteen  brothers  and  sisters. 


IV. 

Young  Jefferson  returned  to  New  Orleans  on  a  brig, 
ci^^iil^tion.  and  eagerly  scanned  the  first  newspapers  to  see  what 
theatrical  attractions  were  on  hand.  He  went  to  the 
theatre  and  witnessed  "  King  Richard  III.,"  with  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  James  W.  Wallack  as  the  stars,  followed  by 
"  A  Kiss  in  the  Dark,"  with  John  E.  Owens  as  "  Mr. 
Pittibone."  It  was  a  night  to  remember,  for  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son not  only  conquered  himself  and  extinguished  the  spark 
of  envy  that  he  confessed  to  have  felt  at  sight  of  such  a 
brilliant  success,  but,  moreover,  he  felt  stirred  up  to  the 
great  ambition  and  resolve  to  equal  Owens  some  day. 

Mrs.  Jefferson  and  her  daughter  decided  to  remain  in 
New  Orleans,  but  Joseph  accepted  an  invitation  from 
his  half-brother  to  join  him  in  Philadelphia.  He 
i^^oTeltage!  crossed  the  Alleghanies  by  stage-coach,  and  gave  a 
travelling  performance  for  the  benefit  of  the  passen- 
gers. He  declares  that  he  should  have  felt  offended 
if  they  had  not  pressed  him  to  do  so.  He  sang  a 
comic  song,  about  "  The  Good  Old  Days  of  Adam 
and  Eve,"  the  passengers  filling  up  the  chorus.  Then 
he  indulged  his  auditors  with  what  he  calls  "  bad  imi- 

50 


MANTEL,    liROUGHT    FKO.M    IMJIA.    I.\"    TH1-:    Dl  X  lN(;-ROOM. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  ^3 

tations "  of  Forrest  and  Booth.  Probably,  however, 
his  later  personations  on  the  stage  were  not  more 
kindly  received  than  these  impromptu  ones  in  the 
stage. 

At  Philadelphia,  Jefferson  found  a  warm  welcome 
from  his  brother  Burke,  who  enabled  him  to  take 
parts  that  he  now  thinks  were  far  beyond  his  reach, 
but  were  not  beyond  his  ambition.  He  must  have 
made  considerable  strides  in  his  profession,  for  when 
Burke  joined  the  Bowery  Theatre  in  New  York,  Jef- 
ferson took  his  place  at  the  Arch.  One  of  his  most 
amusing  experiences  was  where  Burton,  the  manager, 
revived  the  perennially  unsuccessful  "  Antigone "  of  Jefferson 
Sophocles  (probably  for  the  pleasure  of  having  the  '^°*'^°°^" 
audience  call  for  the  author),  and  Jefferson  was  one 
of  the  quartet  that  played  the  chorus,  "  done  up  to 
the  chin  in  white  Grecian  togas,"  and  crowned  with 
laurel  wreaths  that  continually  threatened  to  fall  off. 

After  acting  with  the  stock  company  all  winter,  Mr. 
Jefferson  took  delight  in  going  on  the  summer  circuit  as  Going  as 
a  star.  It  happened  on  the  eve  of  one  of  these  theat- 
rical tramps  that  the  people  of  Cumberland  made  the 
opening  of  their  first  telegraph-office  a  holiday,  and  so 
they  crowded  the  theatre,  and  his  receipts  were  nearly 
three  times  as  much  as  usual,  —  in  other  words,  over 
a  hundred  dollars,  all  in  silver.     As  the  town  contained 


r^  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

only  about  five  hundred  inhabitants,  they  had  to  change 
the  bill  every  night,  and  as  their  finances  did  not  at  first 
allow  them  the  luxury  of  a  bill-poster,  he  and  his  part- 
ner put  up  their  own  bills.      Mr.  Jefferson  says : 

"  No  one  who  has  not  passed  through  the  actual 
experience  of  country  management,  combined  with  act- 
ing, can  imagine  the  really  hard  work  and  anxiety  of 
it,  —  daily  rehearsals,  constant  change  of  performance, 
and  the  continual  study  of  new  parts  ;  but  for  all  this, 
there  was  a  fascination  about  the  life  so  powerful  that 
I  have  known  but  few  that  have  ever  abandoned  it  for 
any  other." 

Glamour  of  That  is  true ;  the  public,  thinking  only  of  the  suc- 
cessful actor,  feted,  and  winning  great  rewards,  has 
little  realisation  of  the  long,  hard  hours  of  work,  the 
dreary  rehearsals,  the  late  hours,  and  the  perpetual 
risks  of  failure  that  oppress  the  actor.  No  wonder 
that  the  stage-struck  boy  or  girl,  overpowered  by  the 
glamour  of  the  footlights,  finds  the  reality  a  dreadful 
awakening. 

Marriage  Mr.  Teffcrson,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his  brother, 

to  Margaret  j  ^  j  •» 

Lo^ckyer?  — his  mother  had  died  in  1849,  —  married  before  he 
was  twenty-one.  Knowing  that  his  friends,  the  other 
actors,  would  be  likely  to  be  present  at  the  ceremony, 
"  not  so  much  out  of  compliment  as  for  the  purpose 
of  indulging  in  that  passion  for  quizzing,  which  seems 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  cc 

to  be  SO  deeply  planted  in  the  histrionic  breast,"  he 
boldly  told  the  company  that  he  was  to  be  married  at 
church,  the  following  Sunday,  after  the  morning  ser- 
vice, and  invited  them  to  be  present.  The  wedding 
took  place  with  extreme  privacy,  at  the  Oliver  Street 
Church,  New  York.  His  groomsman,  Barney  Williams, 
expressed  his  amazement,  stating  that  he  had  supposed 
the  whole  company  would  be  present.  Mr.  Jefferson 
confessed  that  he  had  sent  them  to  the  wrono-  church ! 
When  Jefferson  was  twenty-two,  he  was  assigned  the 
difficult  part  of  "  Marrall,"  in  Massinger's  "New  Way 
to  Pay  Old  Debts,"  with  the  elder  Booth  in  the  part 
of  "  Sir  Giles  Overreach,"      Booth  took  much  pains  to  Jefierson 

^  and  Booth 

teach  him  the  business  of  the  character,  though  Jeffer- 
son thinks  that  the  great  actor  must  have  been  disap- 
pointed, if  not  shocked,  to  have  a  stripling  supporting 
him  with  so  little  physical  or  dramatic  strength.  But 
Booth's  assistance  and  good  nature  were  of  great  assist- 
ance to  him.  Two  or  three  years  later,  he  went  into 
partnership  with  John  Ellsler,  and  took  a  company 
through  the  South.  At  Macon  they  had  good  luck, 
but  at  Savannah  misfortune  pursued  them  until  they 
happened  to  enlist  a  live  baronet,  the  tall  Sir  William 
Don,  who,  though  a  bad  actor,  was  intensely  comical. 
His  society  connections,  however,  saved  the  season  for 
his   managers,   and   they   ended  with   a   blaze  of  glory. 


A  theatrical 
voyage. 


^6  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

The  next  year  they  repeated  the  experiment,  sending 
their  company  on  a  saiHng  vessel  from  New  York  to 
Wilmington.  Mr.  Jefferson  gives  an  amusing  account 
of  the  vessel's  departure  : 

"It  was  an  ill-shapen  hulk,  with  two  great,  badly 
repaired  sails,  flapping  against  her  clumsy  and  fore- 
boding masts.  The  deck  and  sides  were  besmeared 
with  the  sticky  remnants  of  the  last  importation,  so 
that  when  our  leading  actor,  who  had  been  seated  on 
the  taffrail,  arose  to  greet  his  managers,  he  was  una- 
voidably detained.  The  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
company  were  uncomfortably  disposed  about  the  ves- 
sel, seated  on  their  trunks  and  boxes,  that  had  not  yet 
been  stowed  away.  .  „  .  It  was  a  doleful  picture.  The 
captain,  too,  was  anything  but  a  skipper  to  inspire  con- 
fidence. He  had  a  glazed  and  dishevelled  look  that 
told  of  last  night's  booze.  Our  second  comedian,  who 
was  the  reverse  of  being  droll  on  the  stage,  but 
who  now  and  then  ventured  a  grim  joke  off  it  with 
better  success,  told  me  in  confidence  that  they  all  had 
been  lamenting  their  ill-tarred  fate." 

But  they  reached  Wilmington,  after  a  week's  voyage, 

looking  jaded  and  miserable.      On  their  second  evening 

^en?°°^      they   gave   "  Romeo   and  Juliet,"   and  for  the   balcony 

scene  Mr.  Jefferson  had  built  up  with  great  care  a  tipply 

construction  made   out  of  empty  boxes,  painted  a  neat 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  rg 

Stone  colour.  The  immortal  love-scene  was  proceeding 
with  due  warmth  when  the  quick"  ears  of  the  manager 
heard  the  audience  beginning  to  laugh;  the  hilarity 
increased.  "Juliet  retreated  in  amazement,  and  Romeo 
rushed  off  in  despair,"  and  when  the  curtain  was  rung 
hastily  down  Mr.  Jefferson  discovered  to  his  horror  that 
one  of  the  boxes  had  been  set  in  with  the  unpainted 
trade-mark  side  out,  advertising  a  choice  brand  of 
candles. 

At  Charleston,  S.  C,  they  found  a  treasure  in  the 
beautiful  Julia  Dean,  with  whom  Jefferson  had  acted 
in   Mobile  seven  years  before,  and  who  had  now  risen  a  successful 

1  ,  partnership. 

to  be  the  leadmg  juvenile  actress  in  America.  So  suc- 
cessful was  her  alliance  that  Jefferson  and  his  partner 
shared  |i8oo  for  their  first  week's  profits.  With  a  part 
of  this  money  he  bought  a  blue  enamelled  watch  with 
a  diamond  in  the  centre  of  the  case,  for  his  wife,  and  a 
patent  lever  for  himself 

The  following  season  he  was  attached  to  the  Chestnut 
Street  Theatre,  under  Mr.  John  Gilbert,  and  played 
"Doctor  Ollapod"  and  "Bob  Acres,"  as  well  as  "Doctor 
Pangloss."  In  order  to  represent  that  learned  character 
he  took  his  first  lessons  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  pronouncing  the  words  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  audience,  if  not  to  his  own.  In  1853  he  became 
stage-manager   at    the    Baltimore    Museum,    and    more 


manager. 


60  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

than  once  went  over  to  Washington  with  his  company, 
stage  which  contained  some  of  the  best  comedians  of  the  day. 

Curiously  enough,  the  "  School  for  Scandal,"  produced 
with  such  an  exceptional  cast,  was  an  artistic  failure. 
Mr.  Jefferson  says,  "  Harmony  is  the  most  important 
element  in  a  work  of  art.  In  this  instance  each  piece 
of  mosaic  was  perfect  in  form  and  beautiful  in  colour, 
but  when  fitted  together  they  matched  badly,  and  the 
effect  was  crude.  ...  A  play  is  like  a  picture  :  the  actors 
are  the  colours,  and  they  must  blend  with  one  another 
if  a  perfect  work  is  to  be  produced." 


V. 

After  another  year's   experience  as  manager,  —  this 
time  in  Richmond,  Va.,  where  Agnes  Robertson,  Dion  France. 
Boucicault,  and  Edwin  Forrest  were  among  his  stars,  — 
he  went  to  Europe  and  had  a  chance  to  see  and  srady 
many   of  the  able   comedians   then   acting   in    London. 

His  dehght  in  visiting  the  native  land  of  his  mother's 
parents  was  unbounded.  He  could  now  add  French 
to  his  other  accomplishments,  "getting  off  the  French 
pronunciation  pat  and  glib,  as  if  he  had  lived  there  for 
years  !"  He  also  used  much  of  the  savings  of  two  years 
in  replenishing  his  theatrical  wardrobe  at  the  second-hand 
shops  in  the  Temple.  What  a  fascinating  account  the 
old  actor  gives  of  that  royal  expedition  ;  of  his  attempts 
to  appear  cool  and  indifferent,  of  his  queer  misunder- 
standings in  conversing  with  the  little  old  women  who 
had  armour  and  robes  to  sell,  of  his  solicitude  lest  his 
guide  should  walk  off  with  his  purchases !  At  one 
place  he  surprised  a  vivacious  little  flirtation  between 
a  pretty  young  girl,  the  daughter  of  the  dealer,  and  tw^o 
sprightly  young  French  actors.  Madame  presented 
him  to  the  trio  as  an  actor  from  America.     One  of  the 

61 


A  scene 


Si  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

men,  hideously  ugly,  with  a  turned-up  nose  and  a  wide 
from7eai  pash  in  the  middle  of  his  face  for  a  mouth,  and  the  image 
of  a  monkey,  assumed  a  grotesquely  tragic  air,  grasped 
Jefferson  by  the  hand  as  if  he  were  his  long-lost  brother, 
then,  pointing  despairingly  at  the  lovers,  made  it  evident 
that  his  life  was  blasted  by  unrequited  affection.  Then 
he  fell  on  his  knees  before  the  girl  and  implored  her 
love.  Her  scornful  laugh  pricked  the  comedian  to 
heart;  "with  a  sudden  spring  he  picked  up  a  Roman 
helmet,  cocked  it  sidewise  on  his  head,  seized  a  poker, 
and  rushed  upon  his  rival.  Then  he  paused,  and,  burst- 
ing into  tears,  relented,  and  taking  the  lovers'  hands  he 
joined  them  in  wedlock,  invoked  Heaven's  blessings  on 
them,  stabbed  himself  with  the  poker,  and  rushed  out 
into  the  front  shop."  It  was  a  very  gay  party,  but 
Jefferson  saw  plainly  enough  that  a  good  deal  of  their 
fun  was  at  his  expense. 

On  his  return  to  New  York  he  joined  the  forces 
which  Laura  Keene  had  gathered  for  her  new  Broadway 
Theatre,  and  made  a  hit  as  "  Doctor  Pangloss,"  in  "  The 
Heir-at-Law."  He  took  many  liberties  with  the  text, 
but  in  reply  to  a  critic  who  charged  him  with  "making 
a  number  of  curious  interpolations,  occasionally  using 
the  text  prepared  by  the  author,"  Mr.  Jefferson  rightly 
defended  his  method  : 

"  Old  plays,  and  particularly  old  comedies,  are  filled 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  65 

with    traditional    introductions,    good    and    bad.     If  an 

Propriety  of 

actor,  in  exercising  his  taste  and  judgment,  presumes  to  innovations. 
leave  out  any  of  these  respectable  antiquities,  he  is,  by 
the  conventional  critic,  considered  sacrilegious  in  ignoring 
them.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  in  amplifying  the 
traditional  business  he  introduces  new  material,  he  is 
thought  to  be  equally  impertinent ;  whereas  the  question 
as  to  the  introduction  should  be  whether  it  is  good  or 
bad,  not  whether  it  is  old  or  new.  If  there  is  any  prefer- 
ence, it  should  be  given  to  the  new,  which  must  neces- 
sarily be  fresh  and  original,  while  the  old  is  only  a  copy." 

That  remark  well  illustrates  the  simple  common  sense 
so  characteristic  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  An  actor  once  rated 
him  for  curtailing  some  of  the  speeches  in  one  of  the  old 
comedies.  Jefferson  replied  that  he  had  his  own  ideas  on 
those  matters  ;  "  that  the  plays  were  written  for  a  past  age, 
that  society  had  changed,  and  that  it  seemed  to  him  good  ^^^'^^'^'^ 
taste  to  alter  the  text,  when  it  could  be  done  without 
detriment,  to  suit  the  audience  of  the  present  day,  partic- 
ularly when  the  lines  were  coarse  and  unfit  for  ladies  and 
gentlemen  to  speak  or  listen  to." 

The  actor  insinuated  that  Jefferson  was  audacious  in 
setting  himself  up  as  authority  in  such  matters;  that  his 
course  was  a  tacit  reproach  to  older  and  better  judges,  and 
that  "  some  people  did  that  sort  of  thing  to  make  profes- 
sional capital  out  of  it." 


66  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

No  one  now  will  doubt  that  by  just  such  scrupulous 
conduct  as  that,  Jefferson  has  done  his  great  share  in 
elevating  the  tone  and  morale  of  the  stage,  and  it  never 
really  injured  him  either  with  the  public  or  with  the  pro- 
fession that  on  account  of  it  he  was  for  a  time  called  "  the 
Sunday-school  Comedian." 

His  dictum  that  a  man  has  no  more  right  to  be  offen- 
sive on  the  stage  than  in  the  drawing-room  might  well  be 
TfiegPanic     the  motto  of  every  theatre. 

During  the  panic  of  1857,  Mr.  Jefferson  tried  his 
hand  at  concocting  a  melodrama  from  a  Revolutionary 
story  entitled  "  Blanche  of  Brandywine."  It  was  so  full 
of  "  battles,  marches,  countermarches,  murders,  abduc- 
tions, hairbreadth  escapes,  militia  trainings  and  extrav- 
agant Yankee  comicalities,"  that  it  made  audiences  forget 
their  anxieties  caused  by  falling  stocks  and  failing  banks. 
It  has  been  said  that  during  panics  theatres  are  gen- 
erally well  patronised,  but  at  this  time,  Mr.  Jefferson 
says,  "  the  public  despondently  stayed  at  home,  the 
theatres  were  empty,  the  managers  depressed."  But 
he  notes  that  the  actors  were  always  in  the  best  of 
spirits  when  business  was  bad  and  salaries  were  un- 
certain. 


VI. 

The  year  1858  brought  great  good  fortune  to  Joseph 
Jefferson.  Tom  Taylor's  comedy,  "The  American  Trenchard." 
Cousin,"  was  presented  for  the  first  time.  It  had  been 
offered  to  several  experienced  managers,  who  rejected  it, 
and  it  was  reserved  for  an  inexperienced  business-man- 
ager to  discover  its  latent  possibilities.  It  was  recom- 
mended to  Jefferson,  who  was  greatly  taken  with  the 
naturalness  of  the  love-scenes  and  instantly  saw  the 
chance  of  making  something  out  of  the  leading  part. 

It  made  the  fortune  of  three  of  the  actors.  At  the 
rehearsal,  and  indeed  for  the  first  fortnight,  E.  H.  Sothern 
found  everything  to  depress  him  in  the  part  of  "  Lord 
Dundreary,"  but  as  he  began  to  add  all  sorts  of  extrava- 
gances to  his  acting,  the  originality  of  the  character  began 
to  dawn  on  him,  until  he  made  it  a  personation  of  world- 
wide fame.  Jefferson,  as  "Asa  Trenchard,"  took  his  place 
instantly  as  one  of  America's  leading  actors.  Mr.  Win- 
ter says  : 

"Seldom  has  an  actor  found  a  medium  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  spirit  so  ample  and  so  congenial  as  that  part 
proved  for   Jefferson.      Rustic  grace,  simple   manliness, 

67 


68  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

unconscious  drollery,  and  unaffected  pathos,  expressed 
with  artistic  control,  and  in  an  atmosphere  of  repose, 
could  not  have  been  more  truthfully  and  beautifully 
combined." 

The  play  ran  for  the  whole  season,  —  one  hundred  and 

forty  nights, — and  in  the  summer,  having  parted  from 

Laura  Keene's  company,  Jefferson  took  it  through  the 

"  provinces." 

"Caleb  His  next  great  success  was  as  "Caleb  Plummer"  in 

Plummer." 

an  adaptation  of  Dickens's  "Cricket  on  the  Hearth," 
which  was  played  at  Boucicault's  "  Winter  Garden." 
After  the  first  night  Boucicault  said  to  him:  "If  that 
is  the  way  you  intend  to  act  the  part,  I  don't  wonder 
you  were  afraid  to  undertake  it."  Jefferson,  who  had 
expressed  his  fear  that  he  could  not  act  a  part  requiring 
Boucicault  pathos,  was  nevertheless  willing  to  learn,  so  he  asked 
hLr  ^  the  experienced  actor  what  he  meant.  The  reply  was : 
"  You  have  acted  your  last  scene  first ;  if  you  begin  in 
that  solemn  strain,  you  have  nothing  left  for  the  end 
of  the  play." 

Jefferson  declares  that  the  common  sense  underlying 
this  remark  so  appealed  to  him  that  he  acted  upon  it, 
and  so  achieved  success.  He  learned  not  to  anticipate 
strong  effects,  but  to  lead  the  audience  up  to  a  proper 
climax.  He  succeeded  in  raising  the  part  to  such  a 
degree  of  perfection  that  the  critics  said  of  him,  "  The 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  7 1 

gentle  old  man  of  Dickens's  story  lives  again  in  him  and 
touches  every  heart  by  his  sweet  self-sacrifice.  Jeffer- 
son's sensibility  makes  him  sympathetic  with  the  char- 
acter, while  his  admirable  art  enables  him  to  embody  it 
with  thorough  precision  of  detail." 

He  was  also  successful  in  the  parts  of  "  Newman 
Noggs,"  "  Salem  Scudder,"  "  Granby  Gag,"  and  others, 
and  when  Boucicault  suddenly  withdrew,  Jefferson's  ver- 
sion of  "  Oliver  Twist "  was  presented  with  immense  ;;oiiver 
success  with  J.  W.  Wallack  as  "  Fagin  "  and  Matilda 
Heron  as  "  Nancy."  He  was  not  so  successful  in  the 
humorous  portraiture  in  Mrs.  Bateman's  version  of' 
"  Evangeline."  He  declared  it  was  the  worst  comic 
part  he  had  ever  played. 


Twist." 


VII. 

The  actor  who  has  had  success  in  a  part,  the  actor 
who  has  written  a  play,  cannot  fail  to  keep  his  eyes 
open  for  further  possibilities  ;  his  ambition  will  be  stim- 
ulated to  create  some  character  that  shall  be  his,  and  his 
alone.  Jefferson  says  that  when  the  curtain  descended  on 
the  first  night  of  "  The  American  Cousin,"  he  then  and 
there  resolved  to  be  "  a  star."  He  had  made  his  audi- 
ence both  laugh  and  cry.  That  great  marriage  of  dra- 
matic powers,  the  Humorous  and  the  Pathetic,  is  the 
source  of  all  success. 

One  rainy  day  in  the  summer  of  1859,  while  he  was 
"The  reading  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Washington  Irving," 

Sketch-  =>  .  . 

in  the  hayloft  of  a  barn  in  Paradise  Valley,  at  the  foot  of 
Pocono  Mountain,  in  Pennsylvania,  he  happened  to  come 
across  his  own  name  in  a  passage  where  Irving  had  noted 
that  the  younger  Jefferson  was  like  his  father  in  "  look, 
gesture,  size,  and  make."  He  had  never  seen  Jefferson's 
father,  and  of  course  meant  his  grandfather.  By  a 
natural  transition  he  was  led  to  think  of  "  Rip  Van 
Winkle."  An  American  story  by  an  American  author 
for  an  American  actor  1     He  hastened  into  the  house 

72 


Book." 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  y  o 

and  got  "The  Sketch-Book,"  but  on  re-reading  the 
story  of  "  Rip,"  he  was  disappointed  to  find  it  so  un- 
dramatic.  In  Irving's  placid  narrative  it  is  merely  the 
old  story  of  the  Cretan  poet  Epimenides  (whom  St.  Paul 
quotes  in  Titus),  believed  by  the  ancients  to  have  been 
sent  out  by  his  father  after  the  sheep  and  to  have  fallen 
fast  asleep  (like  the  likewise  mythical  little  Bo-Peep), 
only  to  awaken  at  the  end  of  fifty-seven  years,  and  find 
the  whole  world  changed. 

Within  nine  years  after  the  publication  of  "  The  dons^of'^' 
Sketch-Book,"  Thomas  Flynn  had  made  a  poor  dramati-  win'kie.»° 
sation  of  "  Rip,"  and  several  others  had  followed.  In 
1829,  Jefferson's  aunt  Elizabeth  had  played  in  one, 
supposed  to  have  been  a  version  made  in  England. 
Charles  Burke  made  still  another  in  1 849,  and  Jefferson 
acted  the  part  of  the  innkeeper,  Seth.  There  were  no 
less  than  seven  predecessors  to  Jefferson  in  the  part  of 
"  Rip  Van  Winkle."  Mr.  Winter,  who  gives  an  inter-  '^''■ 
esting  account  of  the  various  versions,  says : 

"  All  the  salient  extremes  of  a  representative  picture 
of  human  experience  are  found  in  it, —  fact  and  fancy; 
youth  and  age ;  love  and  hatred ;  loss  and  gain ;  mirth 
and  sadness;  humour  and  pathos;  rosy  childhood  and 
decrepit  senility ;  lovers  with  their  troubles,  which  will 
all  be  smoothed  away,  and  married  people  with  their 
anxieties,  which  will  never  cease ;  life  within  doors,  and 


An  ideal 


y^  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

life  among  trees  and  mountains ;  the  domestic  and  the 
romantic  ;  the  natural  and  the  preternatural ;  and  through 
all,  the  development  and  exposition  of  a  humorous,  cheer- 
ing, romantic,  restful  human  character.  Such  a  theme 
cannot  be  too  much  commended  to  thoughtful  consid- 
eration. It  is  prolific  of  lessons  for  the  conduct  of  life. 
It  teaches  no  direct  moral ;  but  its  power  is  in  its  influ- 
ence,—  to  lure  us  away  from  absorption  in  the  busy 
world,  and  to  make  us  hear  again  the  music  of  running 
water  and  rippling  leaves,  the  wind  in  the  pine-trees,  the 
surf  upon  the  beach,  and,  under  all,  the  distant  murmur 
of  that  great  ocean  to  which  our  spirits  turn,  and  into 
which  we  must  vanish." 

Some  persons  would  go  even  further  than  Mr.  Win- 
ter, and  argue  that  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  presentation  of  the 
henpecked  tippler  he  taught  a  lesson  in  temperance 
more  powerful  than  any  temperance  lecture  ever  de- 
livered, 
ofprrprdng  M^-  Jefferson  remembered  several  of  the  versions  of 
the  story,  but  none  of  them  seemed  to  give  him  what  he 
wanted.  He  went  down  to  the  city  and  got  together 
"  Rip's  "  wardrobe  before  he  had  written  a  hne  of  the 
play.  He  does  not  recommend  this  way  as  the  ideal 
method  of  writing  a  play,  but  tells  the  story  to  illustrate 
the  impatience  and  enthusiasm  with  which  he  entered  on 
his  task.      He  got  the  three  printed  versions  of  the  play, 


for  a  play. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  nn 

and  compared  them.     They  were  in  two  acts,  and  in  all 

of  them  the  spectre  crew  was  introduced  as  speaking  and 

singing.       Jefferson    divided    the    play   into   three   acts, 

and   made   the   second   act  wholly  a   monologue,  while 

Sir  Hendrik  Hudson's  companions  merely  gesticulate. 

Though    it   took   considerable    thought   to   arrange   the 

questions  so  that  the  answers  might  be  made  by  ghostly 

nods,  yet,  within  a  few  days,  he  had  his  version  of  the 

play  all  ready,  and  he  learned  and  rehearsed  the  part,  so 

that  in  the  early  fall  he  was  enabled  to  present  it  to  the 

pubhc    in   Washington.      It  won    sufficient    success    to 

prove  to  him  that  the  character  was  what  he  was  after ;  ^if  vl 

nevertheless,  the  play  was  not  satisfactory.     "The  ac-  ^^"'^'" 

tion,"  he  says,  "  had  neither  the  body  nor  the  strength 

to  carry  the  hero;  the  spiritual  quality  was  there,  but 

the  human  interest  was  wanting." 


Early 


VIII. 

In  1 86 1,  Mrs.  Jefferson  died,  and  the  New  York 
Antipodes,  homc  was  broken  up.  Leaving  three  of  his  children 
at  school,  he  started  with  his  eldest  son  for  California. 
He  states  that  his  engagement  in  San  Francisco  was  an 
unmistakable  failure,  and  he  attributes  the  cause  of  it 
to  the  overzeal  of  his  manager,  who  had  raised  expecta- 
tions too  high,  or,  in  theatrical  parlance,  had  "overbilled" 
him.  However  that  may  have  been,  he  acted  there,  ac- 
according  to  Mr.  Winter,  for  nearly  four  months.  In 
September,  —  Mr.  Winter  says  November, —  he  sailed 
for  Australia  in  the  clipper-ship  Nimrod.  On  board 
atheofogiM.  ship  he  had  great  success  as  a  theologian,  and  his 
arguments  were  so  powerful  in  favour  of  marriage,  that 
his  fellow-passenger.  Father  O'Grady,  had  not  been  in 
Sydney  three  years  before  he  renounced  his  orders, 
and  married,  though  he  still  remained  faithful  to  his 
church.  Mr.  Jefferson  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  was  the  beauty  of  the  lady,  rather  than  his  good 
advice,  that  had  overcome  the  "  good  St.  Anthony's " 
scruples. 

In  Australia,  Mr.  Jefferson  depended  for  his  support 

78 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  y^ 

on  talent  there  assembled,  and  as  he  brought  a  num- 
ber of  fresh  plays,  such  as  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  "  Our 
American  Cousin,"  and  "  The  Octoroon,"  he  made  a 
great  sensation.  At  Melbourne  his  engagement  reached 
one  hundred  and  sixty-four  consecutive  nights.  At 
Castlemaine,  he  was  introduced  to  the  notice  of  the 
inhabitants  by  a  town  crier,  who,  dressed  in  a  high 
white  hat  and  seedy  black  suit,  stood  on  a  barrel  in 
front  of  the  theatre,  crying : 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Oh,  yes  !  Oh,  yes  !  Step  up,  ladies  and 
gentlemen  ;  now  or  never  is  your  honly  chance  to  see 
the  greatest  living  wonder  of  the  age,  Joseph  Jefferson, 
the  great  hactor  from  Amerikee.  His  power  of  pro- 
ducing tears  at  vun  and  the  same  time  is  so  great 
that  he  caused  the  Emperor  of  Roushia  to  weep  on 
his  weddin'  night,  and  made  her  gracious  Majesty,  the 
Queen,  bu'st  out  laughin'  at  the  funeral  of  Prince 
Albert.  He  is  the  bosom  friend  of  the  President  of 
Amerikee,  and  the  hidol  of  'is  Royal  'Ighness,  the 
Prince  of  Wales." 

That  was  too  much  for  the  modest  and  truth-loving 
Jefferson,  and  he  declared  that  he  would  not  act  unless 
the  little  bell-man  should  be  suppressed.  This  was 
more  of  a  job  than  the  manager  had  expected.  Mr. 
Jefferson  describes  the  scene  with  that  delightful  humour 
which  always  enlivens  his  conversation : 


A  town 
crier. 


8o 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 


A  comic 
scene. 


Kean  and 

the 

boomerang. 


A  convict 
play  played 
to  convicts. 


"  The  little  fat  man  now  stood  with  his  arms  folded, 
glaring  defiance  at  the  manager  and  his  myrmidons, 
but  they  seized  him,  and  a  tremendous  struggle  ensued. 
The  tall  white  hat  was  completely  mashed  over  his  eyes, 
and  in  stamping  violently  with  his  rage,  the  head  of  the 
barrel  burst  in,  letting  him  through,  till  only  a  fat  head 
just  appeared  above  the  top.  They  tipped  the  barrel 
over,  and  rolled  him  off  inside,  to  the  great  amusement 
of  the  bystanders,  who  had  been  roaring  with  laughter 
all  the  time." 

Mr.  Jefferson  not  only  toured  through  the  various 
large  cities  of  Australia,  but  visited  the  interior,  and 
saw  a  good  deal  of  interesting  life  among  the  natives ; 
but  he  confesses  that  he  never  learned  to  throw  a  boom- 
erang with  native  skill.  He  gives  an  interesting  pic- 
ture of  himself,  sitting  with  the  great  English  actor, 
Edmund  Kean,  on  a  bench  in  St.  Kilda  Park,  watching 
a  party  of  blacks  throwing  the  boomerang. 

In  Hobart  Town,  the  capital  of  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
Mr.  Jefferson  played  "  The  Ticket-of- Leave  Man  "  for 
the  first  time.  The  city  had  a  large  element  of  former 
convicts,  and  the  announcement  of  the  play  aroused 
great  excitement  among  the  Tasmaniacs  (as  H.  J.  Byron 
called  them).  Mr.  Winter  says  that  upwards  of  six 
hundred  ticket-of-leave  men  were  included  in  his  audi- 
ence on  one  occasion.     Mr.  Jefferson  says : 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  83 

"At  least  one  hundred  ticket-of-leave  men  were  in 
the  pit  on  the  first  night  of  its  production."  Before 
the  curtain  rose,  he  looked  out,  and  thought  it  the 
most  terrible  audience  he  had  ever  seen.  "  Men  with 
low  foreheads,  and  small,  peering,  ferret-looking  eyes ; 
some  with  flat  noses,  and  square,  cruel  jaws ;  some  with 
sinister  expression,  leering,  low  and  cunning,  all  wearing 
a  sullen,  dogged  look,  as  if  they  would  tear  the  benches 
from  the  pit  and  gut  the  theatre  of  its  scenery  if  one 
of  their  kind  was  held  up  to  public  scorn  upon  the 
stage." 

The  impersonation  of  "Bob  Brierly"  was  an  immense 
success  ;  the  audience  rose  to  him  and  "  cheered  to  the 
very  echo."  Jefferson  was  more  than  once  accosted  in 
the  street  by  less  innocent  congeners  of  poor  "Bob,"  who 
would  tell  him  some  touching  story  of  their  early  days. 

He  also  visited  New  Zealand,  where  the  old  comedies 
proved  most  successful,  and  then,  after  a  short  return  Jefferson  as 

.  peacemaker. 

engagement  m  Australia,  he  sailed  from  Melbourne  in  a 
clipper-ship  for  South  America.  It  had  taken  him  fifty- 
seven  days  from  San  Francisco  to  Melbourne;  it  took 
fifty-seven  days  for  him  to  reach  Callao.  On  the  first 
voyage  the  only  excitement  was  religious  discussions  with 
Father  O'Grady  ;  on  this  voyage  a  Northern  man  and  a 
Southerner  were  among  the  passengers,  and  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son had  to  act  as  peacemaker,  so  belligerent  were  their 


84 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 


discussions  of  politics.  It  was  during  the  sixties,  and  the 
result  of  the  war  of  the  RebeUion  had  not  yet  been 
AtcaUao.  announced.  A  Callao  ship-calker,  formerly  from  the 
States,  recognised  Mr.  Jefferson  as  soon  as  he  set  eyes 
on  him;  he  brought  them  the  tidings,  "The  war's  over: 
the  South  caved  in  and  Richmond  is  took." 

This  same  theatrical  connoisseur  offered  to  enable  Jef- 
ferson to  see  the  "  Spanish  fandango  "  danced,  but  as 
the  place  was  rather  dangerous,  he  declined.  He  was 
amazed  at  the  beauty  of  the  ladies  of  Lima,  at  the  horse- 
back-riding beggars,  and  at  the  religious  fervour  and  the 
religious  democracy  of  all  classes,  as  they  mingled  in 
the  dingy  cathedral. 

He  was  kept  a  week  in  Peru  before  the  ship  sailed  for 
Panama,  and  it  was  not  until  June,  1865,  that  he  reached 
London.  There  he  met  Dion  Boucicault,  who,  without 
much  enthusiasm  for  the  subject,  agreed  to  rewrite  Jef- 
ferson's "  Rip  Van  Winkle  "  for  a  consideration.  Mr. 
Clarke  Davis  says  that  many  of  the  suggested  changes 
came  from  Jefferson ;  the  impressive  ending  of  the  first 
act  was  Boucicault's,  while  the  climax  of  the  third  act  — 
Menie  recognising  her  father  —  is  merely  the  reverse  of 
King  Lear  recognising  Cordelia.  Boucicault  also  intro- 
duced the  scheme  of  the  second  marriage  and  many  of 
the  now  familiar  details.  Boucicault  told  Jefferson  that 
it  could  not  possibly  keep  the  stage  more  than  a  month, 


The  new 
"  Rip  Van 
Winkle." 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  %  t 

but  Billington,  one  of  the  London  cast,  told  Paul  Bed- 
ford, the  original  "Nick  Vedder,"  "There's  a  hundred 
nights  in  that  play." 

A  quarrel  between  Boucicault  and  Webster,  the  man- 
ager of  the  Adelphi  Theatre,  nearly  resulted  in  the  play 
being  withdrawn  before  it  was  presented,  but  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's tact  prevented  this  calamity,  and  the  fateful  night 
approached.  Mr.  Jefferson  gives  an  amusing  description 
of  his  last  private  rehearsal.  It  was  Sunday  evening,  and 
he  was  alone  in  his  lodging,  and  had  got  out  his  new  wig 
and  beard  for  the  last  scene.  He  put  them  on  and  be- 
gan acting  and  posing  in  front  of  the  mirror. 

In  about  twenty  minutes  there  came  a  knock  at  the 
door.     This  dialogue  ensued  : 

"  Who's  there  ?  " 

"  It's  me,"  said  the  gentle  but  agitated  voice  of  the 
chambermaid.     "  May  I  come  in  }  " 

"  Certainly  not,"  replied  Mr.  Jefferson,  for  he  had  no 
desire  to  be  seen  in  his  disguise. 

"Is  there  anything  wrong  in  the  room,  sir.?"  she 
asked. 

"  Nothing  at  all.     Go  away." 

"Well,  sir,  there's  a  policeman  at  the  door,  and  he 
says  as  'ow  there's  a  crazy  old  man  in  your  room,  a 
flingin'  of  'is  'ands  and  a-goin'  on  hawflil,  and  there's  a 
crowd  of  people  across  the  street  a-blockin'  hup  the  way." 


A  public 
rehearsal. 


86  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

Mr.  Jefferson  turned  to  the  window  and  discovered  to 
his  horror  that  he  had  forgotten  to  draw  down  the  cur- 
tain. At  first  he  was  mortified  at  having  thus  uncon- 
sciously acted  before  an  audience  of  deadheads,  but 
afterwards  the  comicahty  of  the  situation  so  overcame 
him  that  he  laughed  till  he  was  cured  of  a  sharp  attack 
of  indigestion. 

The  London  critics  hailed  Jefferson  as  one  of  the  most 
genuine  artists  that  had  ever  appeared  on  the  British 
stage,  and  large  audiences  made  his  engagement  a  trium- 
phant success. 
Yorker  ain  After  playing  a  farewell  engagement  in  Manchester 
and  Liverpool,  he  took  a  sailing  vessel  for  New  York, 
and  on  the  third  of  September,  1866,  appeared  at  the 
Olympic  Theatre,  where  his  performance  of  "Rip"  won 
immense  applause.  As  Mr.  Winter  says,  "  The  fame 
of  its  beauty  soon  ran  over  the  land."  He  also  revived 
"The  American  Cousin  "  and  other  old  comedies,  in  each 
winning  the  heartiest  commendation.  At  the  close  of 
that  management  he  went  West,  and  in  December,  1867, 
was  married  in  Chicago  to  his  second  wife,  Miss  Sarah 
Isabel  Warren,  the  niece  of  William  Warren,  his  father's 
cousin.  He  now  used  some  of  his  savings  in  buying 
homes.  In  1869  he  purchased  an  estate  near  Yonkers, 
another  at  Hohokus,  N.  J.,  on  the  Saddle  River,  and  a 
third,  consisting  of  a  ruined  plantation  on  a  lovely  island 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  go 

in  Louisiana.     His  relative,  John  B.   Rice,  of  Chicago, 
rated  him  for  his  extravagance  in  buying  "  a  large  planta- 

•  •  ,         J-,  ,  or  Profitable 

tion  m  the  South,  with  nothing  left  of  the  sugar-house  ^"^^»'°^'''- 
but  the  chimney,  all  the  fences  and  everything  in  a  di- 
lapidated condition,"  and  calling  it  an  investment !  Jef- 
ferson suggested  that  in  time  the  orange  groves  might 
pay  him ;  but  when,  some  years  afterwards,  his  son  in- 
formed him  that  the  only  profits  on  a  large  consignment 
of  oranges,  after  deducting  the  expenses,  were  three  two- 
cent  postage-stamps,  he  concluded  that  "  Uncle  John  " 
was  about  right. 

The  plantation  is  situated  on  an  island  of  about  two 
hundred   acres,  high   above   the  sea,  and   covered  with 
splendid  live-oak  and  magnolia  trees,  as  well  as  with  the 
oranges  and  pecans  that  were  in  bloom  when  he  bought  Pirates- 
it.     Formerly  a  famous  buccaneer  had  made  the  island  ''°'"^" 
his  haunt,  and  the  natives  of  the  region  imagine   that 
there  are  hoards  of  precious  treasures  buried  along  its 
shores   or  under   the   trees.     The  gold   and   silver  that 
is   hidden    by   pirates   during    the    last   century  on   our 
seaboard  would  pay  off  the  national  debt.      From  New- 
foundland   to    Ogunquit,   and   from    Cape   Cod    to    the 
Mississippi,  the  whole  coast,  if  one  may  judge  by  the 
mounds  that  one  sees  near  Bald  Head  Cliff,  must  have 
been  dug  up  a  score  of  times,— at  night,  too,  with  weird 
incantations.     No  wonder  that  Mr.  Jefferson  objects  to 


A  picture 
in  words. 


90  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

the  disfiguring  of  the  picturesque  shores  of  the  Bayou 
Teche.  His  description  of  their  arrival  at  his  Southern 
home  is  a  picture  in  words ;  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  Mr.  Jefferson  is  a  painter  of  pictures  as  well  as  an 
actor  : 

"  At  Brashear,  the  terminus  of  the  railway,  we  used  to 
get  on  board  of  a  little  stern-wheel  boat,  so  small  that, 
contrasted  with  the  leviathan  Texas  steamers  anchored 
in  the  bay,  it  looked  like  a  toy.  Our  route  lay  west- 
ward, up  the  Bayou  Atchafalaya  to  where  it  rnet  the 
Bayou  Teche.  This  is  the  point  where  Gabriel  and 
Evangeline  are  separated  in  Longfellow's  poem.  Our 
passage  up  the  Teche  was  extremely  picturesque.  The 
stream  is  narrow,  and  the  live-oak  and  cypress  trees 
stretch  their  branches  over  it  till  in  places  they  fairly 
meet  and  interlock.  When  the  darkness  came  on,  pine- 
knots  were  burned  in  the  bow  of  the  boat,  and  as  she 
steamed  up  the  narrow  river  a  strong  light  fell  on  the 
gaunt  trees  that  suddenly  started  out  of  the  black  night 
like  weird  spectres.  The  negro  deck-hands,  some  bare 
to  the  waist,  and  others  in  red  and  blue  shirts,  would 
sit  in  lazy  groups  chanting  their  plantation  songs,  keep- 
ing perfect  time  with  the  beat  of  the  engine." 

And  the  pleasure  of  the  arrival  at  this  paradise  of 
leisure,  where,  amid  a  kindly  population,  the  kind- 
hearted  owners  would  enter  into   their  season   of  rest ! 


duties. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  g  i 

Mr.   JefFerson   reports   one  amusing    conversation   with  \ 

^  •    ».ii    showman'! 

a  coloured  boy,  who  had  paddled  him  out  duck-hunting   ' 
on  the  bayou.     This  was  the  dialogue  : 

"  Mr.  Joe,  will  you  be  mad  if  I  ax  you  somefen?" 

"  No,  John  ;  what  is  it .?  "  » 

"  What  does  you  do  in  a  show  ? " 

"  That  is  rather  hard  to  explain." 

"  Well,  does  you  swallow  knives  .?  " 

"  No  ;   I  have  no  talent  that  way." 

"  Why,  your  son  tole  me  that  you  swallowed  knives 
and  forks  and  fire  and  de  Lawd  knows  what  all;  I 
b'lieve  he  was  jest  a-foolin'  of  me." 

"He's  quite  capable  of  it." 

Well,  dere's  one  thing  certain ;  you  don't  act  in  the 
circus." 

"  How  can  you  be  sure  of  that.?  " 

"  Oh,  no  sah,—  oh,  no  sah  ;  you  cain't  fool  me  on  dat. 
I've  seen  you  get  on  your  horse;  you  ain't  no  circus 
rider." 

By  taking  long  vacations  in  this  enchanting  Southern 
home,  by  making  his  seasons  comparatively  short,  and  shon 
by  reserving  several  off-nights  each  week,  Mr.  Jefferson  ''"" 
diminished  the  monotony  of  acting  his  great  part.  And 
when  he  once  more  came  back  to  the  boards,  he  was  as 
fresh  as  at  the  very  beginning.  He  played  it  for  the 
first  time  in  Boston  in  the  summer  of  1869,  and  shortly 


Seasons. 


The  little 

church 
around 
comer. 


92  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

after  Booth's  splendid  theatre  was  opened  he  began  a 
triumphant  series  of  seasons  there.  It  has  been  esti- 
mated that  upwards  of  150,000  persons  witnessed  his 
Rip  at  that  one  theatre. 

In  1870,  the  veteran  actor,  George  Holland,  died,  and 
around  the  Mrs.  Holknd's  sister  desired  the  funeral  to  be  held  at 
her  own  church.  Mr.  Jefferson,  as  an  old  friend  of  the 
family,  went  to  the  minister  with  one  of  Holland's  sons. 
Mr.  Jefferson  told  the  rector  that  his  friend  was  an  actor, 
and  the  rector  replied  that  in  the  circumstances  he  should 
have  to  decline  holding  the  services  at  the  church.  The 
boy  was  in  tears  at  such  a  reply.  Mr.  Jefferson  was  too 
indignant  to  say  a  word,  but  as  they  left  the  room  he 
paused  and  asked  if  there  was  any  other  church  from 
which  his  friend  might  be  buried.  The  rector  replied 
that  there  was  a  little  church  around  the  corner  where  it 
might  be  done.  Mr.  Jefferson  said,  "Then  if  this  be 
so,  God  bless   *the  little   church  around  the   corner.'" 

From   that   time  forth   the    Rev.    Mr. 's  church 

bore  that  famous  appellation.  In  the  following  January 
Mr.  Jefferson  played  the  part  of  "  Mr.  Golightly,"  in  the 
amusing  farce  of  "  Lend  me  Five  Shillings,"  given,  with 
other  plays,  for  the  benefit  of  George  Holland's  widow 
and  children.  His  personation  of  that  fascinating  and 
laughable  character  was  regarded  as  one  of  his  most 
brilliant  successes. 


Threatened 
blindness. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  9^ 

When  Mr.  Jefferson  was  about  forty-three,  he  was 
attacked  by  glaucoma  and  threatened  with  complete 
blindness.  The  oculist  assured  him  that  unless  he 
submitted  to  an  immediate  operation  his  case  would  be 
hopeless.  It  was  performed  at  his  home  at  Hohokus 
and  proved  entirely  successful.  In  August  he  was  enabled 
to  write  to  a  friend,  "  All  traces  of  the  disease  have 
entirely  disappeared.  I  no  longer  wear  glasses,  and  in 
fact  am  as  good  as  new." 

By  the  following  January  he  reappeared  on  the  stage 
with  greater  popularity  than  ever.  And  he  soon  trans- 
ferred his  conquests  to  England.  The  summer  before 
his  season  opened  in  London  he  spent  with  his  family  in 
Paris.  He  gives  an  amusing  account  of  his  attempts  to  -^^^^^ 
learn  French,  —  "  the  pure,  solid  mother  tongue,  with  a  pafn"ing^° 

^  pictures. 

full  Parisian  accent."  He  pictures  his  celebrated  teacher, 
who  came  dressed  in  the  extreme  of  tawdry  fashion,  full 
of  flounces  and  frills,  with  a  large  head  decked  out  in  an 
enormous  bonnet  and  smothered  in  a  flower-garden  in  full 
bloom,  hugging  three  or  four  big  books  under  one  arm, 
and  flourishing  a  formidable  blue  cotton  umbrella.  His 
progress  was  so  rapid  that,  he  says,  at  the  end  of  the  first 
month,  by  hard  study  and  close  application,  he  knew  less 
about  it  than  when  he  began.  So  he  abdicated  in  favour 
of  his  children,  and  spent  the  happy  days  painting  pictures 
of  old  chateaux  or  picturesque  cottages  embowered  under 


cnticism. 


96  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

tall  poplar  trees.  It  was  during  this  visit  that  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son gathered  together  some  of  the  beautiful  specimens  of 
French  art  that  were  later  destroyed  when  his  summer  cot- 
tage was  burnt  down.  His  criticism  on  the  French  school 
is  very  interesting.  He  says  : 
Art  "  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  greatest  landscapes  are 

works  of  the  imagination  rather  than  transcripts  of  reali- 
ties. Nature  refuses  to  be  imitated,  but  invariably  rewards 
the  artist  who  has  the  modesty  to  suggest  her.  The 
painter  who  attempts  to  give  an  exact  picture  of  a  natural 
scene  will  find  himself  surrounded  by  insurmountable 
difficulties.  As  an  example,  let  us  suppose  that  he  takes 
for  his  subject  a  certain  view  with  which  we  are  familiar ; 
the  sky,  water,  foreground,  trees,  and  distance  may  be 
painted  in  the  exact  form,  colour,  and  perspective  propor- 
tions of  the  original,  and  yet  fail  to  give  one  idea  of  the 
spot.  What  is  the  reason  of  this  non-resemblance  when 
all  the  details  have  been  so  carefully  imitated  ?  What  is 
it  that  has  no  existence  in  the  picture,  and  that  so  pervades 
nature  ?  Where  are  the  sweet  sounds  of  the  woods  ? 
Where  is  the  singing  of  the  birds,  the  hum  of  busy  insects, 
and  the  murmur  of  the  brooks  ?  Where  is  the  movement 
of  the  clouds,  the  graceful  bending  of  the  trees,  and  the 
perfume  of  the  pines  and  woodland  flowers  ?  He  cannot 
paint  these,  and  so  his  realistic  work  is  cold  and  lifeless. 
But  if  in  modest  truth  he  suggests  his  work,  omitting  hard 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME.  qh 

details  and  impertinent  finish,  the  simple  picture  will  lead 
us  in  our  imagination  to  supply  the  artistic  impossibili- 
ties of  sound  and  movement." 

These  suggestions  are  extremely  interesting,  for  Mr. 
Jefferson  has  won  no  small  success  in  the  art  of  land- 
scape painting,  and  some  of  his  pictures  well  illustrate 
this  very  quality  of  which  he  speaks. 


IX. 

Mr.  Jefferson  spent  two  winters  in  London  at  the 
Princess's  Theatre,  and  ended  his  London  engagement 
with  a  brief  season  at  which  he  played  "  Mr.  Golightly  " 
and  other  light  comedy  parts.  His  London  life  was  made 
memorable  by  his  friendship  or  acquaintance  with  some 
of  the  greatest  men  of  the  day.  He  was  invited  to  make 
a  visit  at  a  splendid  estate  in  Scotland,  and  there  he  had  a 
courteous,  memorable  encounter  with  the  daughter  of  an  English 
earl.  She  was  radiantly  beautiful,  "  witty,  aristocratic, 
haughty,  and  satirical,"  and  she  amused  herself  by  quizzing 
the  American  actor.  At  first  he  took  her  questions 
seriously,  but  soon  perceived  that  she  was  making  sport 
of  him,  and  when  she  asked  him  with  apparent  innocence 
if  he  had  lately  met  the  Queen,  he  replied  with  equal  seri- 
ousness, "  No,  madam,  I  was  out  when  her  Majesty 
called."     He  was  revenged. 

Before  he  came  back  to  America  he  played  "Rip"  in 
Dublin  and  Belfast.  In  the  one  the  engagement  was  a 
flat  failure ;  indeed,  he  was  asked  at  the  first  rehearsal  to 
make  the  character  Irish  instead  of  Dutch,  and  he  was 
told  that  if  he  would  do  so  the  Dublin  audience  was  such 

98 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  99 

a  rare  one  that  he  might  defy  the  world.  He  declares 
that  if  the  scarcity  of  spectators  was  a  test  of  its  rareness, 
it  certainly  was. 

After  his  return  to  America  he  confined  himself  prin-  versatility, 
cipally  to  his  two  great  parts.  Assuredly,  he  who  had 
won  his  laurels  in  over  a  hundred  distinct  characters  did 
not  deserve  the  reproach  of  lacking  versatility.  In  ref- 
erence to  this  charge,  —  that  he  has  been  remiss  in  learn- 
ing new  parts,  —  he  quotes  a  conversation  with  Charles 
Mathews,  in  which  that  clever  comedian  rallied  him  as 
"  the  prince  of  dramatic  carpetbaggers,"  carrying  all  his 
wardrobe  in  a  gripsack.  But  Mr.  Jefferson  retorted 
that  he  was  confounding  wardrobe  with  talent,  and  as- 
sured him  that  "  it  requires  more  skill  to  act  one  part 
fifty  different  ways,  than  to  act  fifty  parts  all  one  way." 

For  his  own  sake  an  actor  needs  some  change,  and 
Mr.  Jefferson,  who  had  come  upon  "  Rip  Van  Winkle  " 
after  long  search,  found  the  part  of  "  Bob  Acres  "  obsess- 
ing him  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  "  Rip  "  had  done. 
He  says  :  "  Bob  was  an  attractive  fellow  to  contemplate.  Acres" an 
Sheridan  had  filled  him  with  such  quaintness  and  eccen- 
tricity that  he  became  to  me  irresistible.  I  would  often 
think  of  him  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  At  odd  times, 
when  there  was  apparently  no  reason  for  him  to  call,  he 
would  pop  up  before  me  like  a  new  acquaintance,  —  for 
I  had  acted  him  before,  —  but  alwavs  with  a  new  expres- 


Innovations. 


lOO  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

sion  on  his  face.  The  variety  of  situations  in  which  the 
author  had  placed  him  ;  his  arrival  in  town  with  his  shal- 
low head  full  of  nonsense  and  curl-papers,  and  his  warm 
heart  overflowing  with  love  for  an  heiress  who  could  not 
endure  him  in  the  country  because  he  used  to  dress  so 
badly ;  a  nature  soft  and  vain,  with  a  strong  mixture  of 
goose  and  peacock ;  his  aping  of  the  fashion  of  the  town, 
with  an  unmistakable  survival  of  rural  manners ;  his 
swagger  and  braggadocio  while  writing  a  challenge ;  and, 
above  all,  the  abject  fright  that  falls  upon  him  when  he 
realises  what  he  has  done,  —  could  the  exacting  heart  of 
a  comedian  ask  for  more  than  these  ? " 

So  he  fell  to  work,  condensing  and  revising,  and,  in 
fact,  largely  rewriting  "  The  Rivals,"  just  as  Sheridan 
himself  had  altered  and  renamed  Vanbrugh's  comedy  of 
"  The  Relapse."  He  condensed  the  play  from  five  acts 
to  three,  he  cut  several  of  the  characters  out  of  it,  and  he 
expunged  the  few  lines  that  had  any  shadow  of  coarse- 
ness about  them. 

At  the  first  rehearsal  at  Philadelphia,  Mrs.  John  Drew 
introduced  some  novel  business  in  the  part  of  "Mrs. 
Malaprop,"  and  asked  him  if  he  thought  the  innovation 
was  admissible.  Mr.  Jefferson  replied  that  he  thought 
it  was ;  moreover,  that  he  was  convinced  that  Sheridan 
himself  would  have  done  the  same  thing,  if  he  had  only 
thought  of  it.     The  revised  play  was  warmly  received. 


ELliC'l  UlC     I'l.AN  1  . 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  lOJ 

but  of  course  some  of  the  old  actors  felt  called  upon  to 
indulge  in  harmless  sarcasms.  Jefferson's  cousin,  Wil- 
liam Warren,  remarked  that  it  reminded  him  of  Thomas 
Buchanan  Read's  poem,  "  And  Sheridan  twenty  miles 
away."  John  Gilbert  predicted  that  the  shade  of  Sher- 
idan would  haunt  him.  At  a  Christmas  tree,  when  his 
manager  received  a  bundle  of  railway  guides,  his  gift  was 
a  book  of  "  The  Rivals,"  with  all  the  parts  but  his  own 
cut  out.  But  all  this  was  innocent  fun.  Mr.  Winter, 
in  a  long  and  careful  analysis  of  the  part,  says,  "  The 
spirit  of  Jefferson's  impersonation  was  humanity  and 
sweet  good  nature,  while  the  traits  that  he  especially 
emphasised  were  ludicrous  vanity  and  comic  trepidation. 
He  left  no  moment  unfilled  with  action,  when  he  was  on 
the  scene,  and  all  his  by-play  was  made  tributary  to  the 
expression  of  these  traits." 

Since  1880,  then,  Mr.  Jefferson's  life  has  been  one  a  delightful 
which  any  actor  might  set  for  himself  as  an  ideal.  Lim- 
iting himself  to  a  repertoire  of  not  more  than  a  dozen 
characters,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  to  only 
two,  —  "  Rip  "  and  "  Bob  Acres,"  —  he  has  made  short 
seasons,  and  played  to  full  and  profitable  houses.  Age 
has  not  dimmed  the  fervour  of  those  immortal  impersona- 
tions. During  the  hard  months  of  winter  he  has  sought, 
and  apparently  found.  Ponce  de  Leon's  fountain  of 
eternal  youth  on  his  beautiful  estate  of  Orange   Island. 


old  age. 


1 04  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  A  T  HOME. 

Here  is  the  picture  of  him,  painted  by  himself,  in  his 
serene  old  age : 

"In  Louisiana  the  live-oak  is  the  king  of  the  forest, 
and  the  magnoHa  is  its  queen ;  and  there  is  nothing  more 
delightful  than  to  sit  under  them  on  a  clear,  calm  spring 
morning  like  this.  The  old  limbs  twine  themselves  in 
fantastic  forms,  the  rich,  yellow  foliage  mantles  the  trees 
with  a  sheen  of  gold,  and  from  beneath  the  leaves,  the 
gray  moss  is  draped,  hanging  in  graceful  festoons,  and 
swaying  slowly  in  the  gentle  air.  I  am  listening  to  the 
merry  chirp  of  the  tuneful  cardinal,  as  he  sparkles  like  a 
ruby  amid  the  green  boughs,  and  to  the  more  glorious 
melody  of  the  mocking-bird.  Now,  in  the  distance, 
comes  the  solemn  cawing  of  two  crafty  crows  ;  they  are 
far  apart ;  one  sits  on  the  high  branch  of  a  dead  cypress, 
wo?^*"  while  his  cautious  mate  is  hidden  away  in  some  secluded 
spot ;  they  jabber  to  each  other  as  though  they  held  a 
conference  of  deep  importance ;  he  on  the  high  limb 
gives  a  croak  as  though  he  made  a  signal  to  his  distant 
mate,  and  here  she  comes  out  of  the  dense  wood  and 
lights  quite  near  him  on  the  cypress  branch ;  they  sidle 
up  to  each  other,  and  lay  their  wise  old  heads  together, 
now  seeming  to  agree  upon  a  plan  of  action ;  with  one 
accord  they  flutter  from  the  limb,  and  slowly  flap  them- 
selves away. 

"  I   am  sitting  here  upon  the  fragment  of  a  broken 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  1 05 

wheel ;  the  wood  is  fast  decaying,  and  the  iron  cogs 
are  rusting  in  their  age.  It  is  as  old  as  I  am,  but 
will  last  much  longer.  Most  likely  it  belonged  to 
some  old  mill,  and  has  been  here  in  idleness,  through 
generations  of  the  crows ;  it  must  have  done  good  ser- 
vice in  its  day,  and  if  it  were  a  sentient  wheel,  perhaps 
would  feel  the  comfort,  in  old  age,  of  having  done  its 
duty. 

"  Over  my  head  the  gray  arms  of  two  live-oaks  stretch 
their  limbs,  and  looking  down  into  the  ravine,  I  see 
the  trees  are  arched,  as  though  they  canopied  the  aisle 
of  a  cathedral ;  and  doubtless  they  stood  here  before 
the  builder  of  the  mill  was  born.  Behind  a  fallen  tree 
there  stands  another ;  and  on  the  trunk,  from  where  I 
sit,  I  plainly  see  the  initials  of  my  wife's  name,  cut 
there  by  me  on  some  romantic  birthday,  many  years 
ago." 

We  can  see  Mr.  Jefferson  surrounded  by  members  of 
his  family  in  this  Southern  paradise ;  his  genial,  shrewd, 
expressive  face  beaming  with  happy  thoughts.  One 
can  fill  in  the  figure  painting  in  addition  to  his  own 
landscape. 

When  the  summer  breezes  blow  too  torrid  across  the 
waters  of  the  bayou,  Mr.  Jefferson  flits  like  the  birds 
to  the  North.  He  has  a  charming  estate  called  Crow's 
Nest,   near  the  upper  waters  of  Buzzard's   Bay.     The 


Crow's 

Nest. 


106  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

house  which  was  built  in  1889  was  filled  with  many- 
choice  works  of  art,  —  a  portrait  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  by- 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  a  portrait  of  himself  by  Wilkie, 
and  other  pictures  by  Lawrence,  Corot,  Daubigny,  Tro- 
yon,  Rousseau,  Diaz,  and  others.  By  the  explosion  of 
a  gasolene  tank.  Crow's  Nest  was  set  on  fire,  and  burnt 
to  the  ground,  with  all  its  precious  contents,  in  April, 
1893.  The  following  year  it  was  rebuilt,  and  here,  in 
summer,  Mr.  Jefferson  lives  a  delightful  life,  in  inti- 
mate association  with  ex-President  Cleveland  and  other 
congenial  friends.  Buzzard's  Bay  offers  every  enticing 
sport,  with  its  bluefish,  and  a  safe  expanse  for  boating. 
Not  far  away  are  the  charming  ponds  of  the  Cape, 
where  trout  and  bass  abound.  The  scenery  is  not 
Kard's^  magnificent,  but  the  quiet  landscape  is  full  of  charm  ; 
in  driving  over  the  hard  shell  roads  that  cut  across 
the  sandy  soil,  there  are  fascinating  glimpses  of  blue 
water,  and  there  are  wild  tracts,  where  not  a  house  can 
be  seen.  The  air  is  peculiarly  soft  and  balmy,  and 
the  daily  breeze  from  the  Bay  tempers  the  extreme 
heat  of  the  equinox. 

Here  Mr.  Jefferson  gathers  around  him,  not  only  his 
own  children,  —  of  which  ten  have  been  born  to  him,  — 
but  also  his  children's  children;  and  any  one  who  has 
ever  seen  Rip  with  the  children  of  Falling  Water  will 
not  hesitate   to   believe   that  Mr.  Jefferson  is  fond  of 


The 
beau 
Buz: 
Bay. 


JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME.  1 07 

children,  and  some  of  the  most  attractive  portraits 
of  him  show  him  with  children  at  his  knee  or  climb- 
ing over  his  back. 

He  still  paints  enthusiastically,  and  some  of  his  pic-  jigersona 
tures  have  been  shown  in  exhibitions,  always  attracting 
great  interest,  not  merely  because  they  are  the  work  of 
the  popular  actor,  but  because  they  have  intrinsic  merit. 
Their  dominant  quality  has  been  described  as  being  akin 
to  his  acting :  "  marked  by  tenderness  of  feeling,  com- 
bined with  a  touch  of  mystery,"  —  an  imaginative 
quality,  reminding  of  the  works  of  Corot.  It  is  no 
small  privilege  to  be  admitted  to  the  sanctum  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  studio,  where  he  so  skilfully  wields  the  brush 
and  mahlstick.  It  is  certainly  an  instructive  sight  to  see 
a  man  who  has  won  fame  and  fortune  in  a  calling  that 
tends  to  unsettle  domesticity,  thus  utilising  his  pleasant 
leisure  with  an  avocation  so  ennobling  and  satisfactory. 

His  residence  in  Louisiana  is  so  far  away,  and  in 
so  large  a  domain,  —  Mr.  Winter  calls  It  six  hundred 
acres,  —  that  he  seems  to  disappear  from  sight  when 
he  gets  there.  But  at  Buzzard's  Bay  he  is  in  the  eye  hospitality. 
of  the  world.  His  noble  mansion  stands  out  prom- 
inent on  a  breezy  height,  overlooking  the  Bay ;  and 
here  he  may  be  seen  with  his  family,  or  entertaining 
the  guests  who  delight  in  his  genial  hospitality  and 
ever-fluent    store    of   anecdote,    reminiscence,    and    wit. 


Nest. 


1 08  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

The  house  itself  is  filled  with  valuable  relics,  with  art 
treasures  brought  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  His  own 
a/crow's^  pictures  hang  upon  the  walls,  and  hold  their  own  in 
comparison  with  those  of  men  who  have  made  paint- 
ing their  life-work,  rather  than  a  diversion.  The  man- 
telpiece in  the  dining-room  was  brought  from  India,  is 
richly  carved,  and  is  in  itself  a  work  of  art.  Under  the 
mantel  in  the  parlor  is  a  panel  representing,  in  relief, 
scenes  from  "Rip  Van  Winkle."  The  electrical  lighting 
is  furnished  from  a  power-house  situated  on  the  premises, 
and,  typical  of  its  owner,  keeps  the  whole  establishment 
in  a  glow  of  brilliancy.  Ample  stables  furnish  recreation 
in  riding  and  driving.  In  fact.  Crow's  Nest  is  a  home, 
—  a  home  of  wealth  and  comfort  and  cosiness. 

Four  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  sons  have  either  adopted  the 
stage,  or  shown  talent  for  the  drama.  One  of  his  daugh- 
ters is  married  to  the  distinguished  English  novelist, 
Benjamin  L.  Farjeon,  author  of  "  The  King  of  Noland" 
and  "  Miriam  Rozella."  She  lives  in  London.  His 
youngest  son  was  born  in   1885. 


X. 

One  might  fill  many  pages  with  analyses  of  Mr.  jefferson 
Jefferson's  impersonations.  They  have  been  so  many  ™^'"^^'^^'i- 
times  described  that  it  will  not  be  hard  for  those  of 
another  generation  to  get  some  idea  of  his  powers.  Yet 
even  the  present  generation  will  remember  him  chiefly 
as  the  creator  of  "  Rip  Van  Winkle"  and  "  Bob  Acres." 
These  two  parts,  so  dissimilar  and  yet  with  somewhat 
the  same  strength  and  the  same  lovable  weaknesses, 
have  amused  and  delighted  unnumbered  thousands. 
Mr.  Jefferson's  success  in  working  out  an  original  con- 
ception for  these  parts  teaches  a  lesson  to  persons  of 
every  age  and  every  profession  ;  it  is  to  have  an  ideal, 
and  constantly  to  strive  to  reach  it.  To  be  sure,  Mr. 
Jefferson  seems  to  have  inherited  peculiar  talent  for  the 
profession  into  which  he  was  born,  and  circumstances 
favoured  his  training  in  it  in  a  school  not  by  any  means 
easy,  but  nevertheless  adequate  to  bring  out  his  best 
qualities.  Throughout  his  course,  he  shaped  every 
change  and  possibility  so  as  to  bear  on  his  coming 
mastership.  It  was,  therefore,  something  better  than 
"Good   Fortune"   that   brought  him   such  an  immense 

109 


An  amiable 


I  lo  JOSEPH  JEFFERSON  AT  HOME. 

measure  of  reward.  No  one  can  grudge  him  the  good 
things  that  have  fallen  to  his  share.  He  has  preserved 
character,  j^  ^  circumstances  the  sweet  and  wholesome  sense  that 
acts  as  a  salt  against  conceit.  His  friends  are  unanimous 
in  their  praise  of  his  simplicity,  cordiality,  and  frankness. 
To  have  reached  to  the  serene  old  age  of  fourscore  "  so 
unspotted  of  the  world,"  is  as  fine  a  lesson  of  genius  as 
history  can  afford. 


THE    END. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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